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ECCE VENIT. 



OTorb0 br 2Dn a. 31* Portion* 



IN CHRIST ; or, The Believer's Union with his Lord. Sev- 
enth Edition. i2mo, fine cloth, 210 pages, $1.00. 
We do not remember since Thomas a Kempis a book so thoroughly- 
imbued with great personal love to Christ. It is evidently the happy 
result of hours of high communion with Him. — Boston Lozirier. 

The true standard of Christian excellence is nobly upheld and dis- 
played in these pages, which cannot fail to impress every thoughtful 
reader by whom the volume is taken in hand. — Rock. 

THE MINISTRY OF HEALING ; or, Miracles of Cure in all 
Ages. Third Edition. i2ino, fine cloth, 250 pages, $1.25 
An interesting and thoughtful work. Dr. Gordon marshals together 
witnesses from all ages and all classes in favor of his belief that cures 
may still be wrought through prayer. — British and Foreign Evan- 
gelical Review. 

THE TWO-FOLD LIFE ; or, Christ's Work for Us, and 
Christ's Work in Us. i2mo, fine cloth, 285 pages, $1.25. 

Distinguished by exquisite purity of thought, by deep spiritual in- 
sight, and by great strength of practical argument. The work is one 
of great spiritual beauty and helpfulness. — Baptist Magazine. 

... Its perusal will amply repay the reader who wishes to become 
a full-grown Christian. — C. H. Spurge on. 

GRACE AND GLORY: Sermons for the Life That Now Is 
and That Which Is To Come, iamo, fine cloth, 355 pages, 
$1.50. 

Here we have power without sensationalism ; calm thought, living 
and earnest, expressed in forcible language; the doctrine orthodox, 
evangelical, practical. We shall be surprised if these discourses are 
not reprinted by an English house. — C. H . Spurgeon. 

. . . The author's manner of treating spiritual truths is both power- 
ful and impressive. — London Morning Post. 

ECCE VENIT; Behold He Cometh. i2mo, fine cloth, 311 pages, 

$1.25. 

*** A ny of the above sent, post free, to any address on receipt of 
price. 

FLEMING H. REVELL, 
New York: 12 Bible House ; Chicago : 148 & 150 Madison St. 



ECCE VENIT 



25cl)Dlti J3c Coniett) 



BY 



A. J. GORDON, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF "IN CHRIST,"' "THE TWOFOLD LIFE," ETC. 



Ecce venit cum nubibus 
I5ov epx^raL /j-era tu>v ve<f>e\iov 
Rev i. 7 




: : Fleming 1b, IRevell : : 

New York: Chicago: 

12 BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOR PLACE. 148 AND 150 MADISON STREET. 

- publisher of Evangelical literature = 



V% 






Copyright, 1889, 
By A. J. GORDON. 



rbZ 



Electrotyped by H. O. Houghton & Co 
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 



THE ECONOMIST PRESS, 330 PEARL ST., N. Y. 



" This word He has in fact spoken, — '■Hereafter ye shall see the 
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven? — but it is a word of 
which there is no other example. Even the mad pride of Roman 
emperors who demanded religious homage for their statues has never 
gone so far as to conceive such an unheard-of thought, and here it 
is the lowliest among men who speaks. The word must be truth ; 
for there is here no mean term belzueen truth and madness." — 

LUTHARDT. 

c/ Oti avrbs 'O Kvpios eV KeAeva/uari, iv (poovfj apxayy^Aov, /cat iv 
(TaAiriyyi deov KaTafi^creraL aw oupauov. — PAUL, I Thess. iv. 1 6. 



The Library 
CF CoNnir:3# 



PREFACE. 



The importance of a doctrine may be judged some- 
what by the proportionate space and prominence given 
to it in the New Testament. Measured by this stand- 
ard, the theme of Christ's coming in glory is second to 
none in Scripture, not even to the atonement itself, in 
the claim which it makes upon our consideration. "A 
real pearl of Christian truth and knowledge" a great 
expositor calls it. And since the merchantmen who 
seek this goodly pearl are too few, it becomes those 
who have proved it, both by spiritual experience and 
scriptural study, to be indeed a " pearl of great price," 
to do their utmost to set forth its excellency. If, 
therefore, in what we have written we have reflected 
one " purest ray serene " from this precious doctrine 
and glorious hope of the Church, we shall count it a 
high honor from the Lord. 

Would that such a theme might be divested of all 
controversial aspects! But here, as everywhere, there 
are schools of interpretation between which one finds 
himself obliged, whether he will or not, to choose. 
Pre - millennial or post -millennial advent — Christ's 
coming before the millennium or after the millennium 
— is the issue which divides two great parties of bib- 
lical students. We humbly but firmly hold with the 
first school on this question. If we admit, with the 
eminent theologian Van Oosterzee, — to whom we ac- 



PREFACE. 



knowledge great indebtedness, — that "some courage 
is required to range one's self among the defenders of 
Chiliasm," with him we profess that " we do so never- 
theless in obedience to faith in the Word, without 
which we know nothing of the future." And yet here 
the courage of conviction need not be greatly taxed 
considering these two facts, viz., that the concession 
of Church historians, led by such masters as Neander 
and Harnack, is that pre-millennialism was the ortho- 
dox and accepted faith of the Church in the primitive 
and purest ages ; and that the opinion of the most 
eminent exegetes of our time, that this is the true doc- 
trine of Scripture, so strongly preponderates as to give 
promise of an early practical consensus. 

Pre-millenarians, again, are divided into two schools, 
the Futurist and the Historical : the former of whom 
hold that Antichrist is yet to appear, and that the 
larger part of the Apocalypse remains to be fulfilled ; 
while the latter maintains, with the reformers and the 
expositors of the early post-Reformation era, that Anti- 
christ has already come in the bloody and blasphemous 
system of the papacy, and that the Apocalypse has 
been continuously fulfilling from our Lord's ascension 
to the present time. If we turn away from the Futurist 
interpretation — in which we were " nourished and 
brought up " so far as our prophetic studies are con- 
cerned — and express our firm adherence to the His- 
torical, it is because we believe that the latter is more 
scriptural, and rests upon the more obvious and sim- 
ple interpretation of the Word • and also because we 
find that it has such verifications in fulfilled history 
and chronology as to compel even some of its strong- 
est opponents to concede that it is a true interpreta- 



PREFACE 



tion if not the complete and final one. But we depre- 
cate controversy between these schools, since both 
hold strongly to the hope of the Lord's imminent 
return, and are vying with each other in earnest en- 
deavor to restore the doctrine to its true place in the 
creed and in the consciousness of the Church. It 
certainly becomes us all, while rejoicing in the light 
we have, humbly to wait for greater light, assured that, 
in the foregleams of the approaching advent, contra- 
dictions will more and more vanish, till in our gather- 
ing together unto Him " the watchmen shall lift up 
the voice, with the voice together shall they sing, for 
they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring 
again Zion." 

When Samuel Taylor Coleridge had finished read- 
ing that remarkable book, Ben Ezra's " Coming of 
Messiah in Glory and Majesty," he indited the follow- 
ing prayer. With its devout aspirations in our hearts 
and on our lips, let us come to the study of the ex- 
alted theme. 

" O Almighty God, Absolute Good, Eternal I Am ! 
Ground of my being, Author of my existence, and its 
ultimate end ! mercifully cleanse my heart, enlighten my 
understandings and strengthen my will ; that if it be 
needful orfurtherant to the preparation of my soul, and 
of Thy Church, for the advent of Thy kingdom, that 1 
should be led into the right belief respecting the second 
coming of the Son of matt into the world, the eye of my 
mi?id may be quickened into quietness and singleness of 
sight. Amen." 



i i>' 



Clarendon Street Church, Boston, 

September i, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST: FORETOLD. 

PAGE 

I. The Uplifted Gaze i 

II. Tarrying within the Veil 13 

III. The Power of His Coming 3° 

IV. The Programme of Redemption .... 44 
V. The Ends of the Ages 60 

PART SECOND: FORFEITED. 

I. Heavenly Citizenship 85 

II. The Fall of the Church 96 

III. The Advent of Antichrist 108 

IV. The Bride of Antichrist 132 

V. The Mock Millennium 147 

VI. The Eclipse of Hope 165 

PART THIRD: FULFILLED. 

I. Hope Revived 179 

II. Foregleams of the Day 193 

III. Behold He Cometh 208 

IV. The First Resurrection 218 

V. The Translation of the Church . . . 236 

VI. The Marriage of the Lamb 248 

VII. The Judgment of Christendom .... 258 

VIII. The Restoration of Israel 274 

IX. The Millennial Kingdom , 290 



PART I. 



FORETOLD. 



ECCE VENIT, 



I. 

THE UPLIFTED GAZE, 

Have we thought how significant and full of 
instruction is the earliest attitude of the Church 
as presented in the opening chapter of the Acts : 
" Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing tip into 
heaven?" In a single graphic sentence is thus 
indicated the primitive uplook of Christianity ; 
and this question, with what immediately follows, 
is uttered, not so much for rebuke as for interpre- 
tation. The great High Priest has just passed 
within the veil, and the cloud-curtain has shut 
Him out of sight. And, as the Hebrew congre- 
gation, upon the great day of atonement, looked 
steadfastly upon the receding form of Aaron as 
he disappeared within the veil, and continued 
looking long after he was out of sight, waiting 
for his reappearance ; so exactly did these men 
of Galilee, though they knew not what they did. 
And the angels were sent to declare to them the 
meaning of their action : " This same Jcstis, 



ECCE VENIT. 



which is take 71 up from you into heaven, shall so 
come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into 
heaven" This is the earliest post-ascension an- 
nouncement of that gospel of hope which, at the 
first, began to be spoken by the Lord Himself, — 
" If I go . . . I will come again" — which is now 
confirmed unto us by His angels, and is hence- 
forth to be reiterated by apostle and seer till, 
from the last page of Revelation, it shall be heard 
sounding forth its " Surely I come quickly." 

The second coming of Christ is the crowning- 
event of redemption ; and the belief of it consti- 
tutes the crowning article of an evangelical creed. 
For we hold that the excellence of faith is ac- 
cording to the proportion of the Lord's redemp- 
tive work which that faith embraces. Some ac- 
cept merely the earthly life of Christ, knowing 
Him only after the flesh ; and the religion of such 
is rarely more than a cold, external morality. 
Others receive His vicarious death and resurrec- 
tion, but seem not to have strength as yet to fol- 
low Him into the heavens ; such may be able 
to rejoice in their justification without knowing 
much of walking in the glorified life of Christ. 
Blessed are they who, believing all that has gone 
before, — life, death, and resurrection, — can joy- 
fully add this confession also : " We have a great 
High Priest who is passed through the heavens ; " 



■Ml 



THE UPLIFTED GAZE. 



and thrice blessed they who can join to this con- 
fession still another: "From whence also we look 
for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." For it 
is the essential part of our Redeemer's priesthood 
that, having entered in, to make intercession for 
His people, He shall again come forth to bless 
them. How sweet was the sound of the golden 
bells upon the high priest's garments, issuing 
from the holy of holies, and telling the waiting 
congregation of Israel that, though invisible, he 
was still alive, bearing their names upon his 
breast-plate, and offering up prayers for them, be- 
fore God ! But, though they listened intently 
to these reassuring sounds from within the veil, 
they watched with steadfast gaze for his reappear- 
ing, and for the benediction of his uplifted hands 
that should tell of their acceptance. 1 This they 
counted the crowning act of his ministration. 
Therefore, says the Son of Sirach, " How glori- 
ous was he before the multitude of his people, in 
his coming forth from within the veil ! He was 
as the morning star in the midst of the cloud, or 
as the moon when her days are full." If this 
could be said of the typical high priest, how 
much more of the true ! Glorious beyond de- 

1 " All their hopes depended on his life within the veil ; and 
when at length he came forth alone, there was great joy, for 
they thought they were accepted." — Gemara. 



ECCE VENIT. 



scription will be His reemergence from the veil ; 
"the bright and morning Star," breaking forth 
from behind the cloud that received Him out of 
sight ; His once pierced hands lifted in benedic- 
tion above His Church, while that shall be ful- 
filled which is written in the Hebrews : " And 
when He again bringeth in the Firstborn into 
the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God 
worship Him " (Heb. i. 6, r. v.). 

This attitude of the men of Galilee became 
the permanent attitude of the primitive Church ; 
so that the apostle's description of the Thessa- 
lonian Christians — "Ye turned to God from 
idols, to serve the living and true God, and to 
wait for His Son from Heaven" — might apply 
equally to all. Talk we of "the notes of a true 
Church " ? Here is one of the most unquestion- 
able, — the uplifted gaze. As apostate Christi- 
anity, by a perverse instinct, is perpetually aping 
the eastward posture of Paganism (Ezekiel viii. 
1 6), so inevitably is apostolic Christianity con- 
stantly recurring to the upward posture of Primi- 
tivism. What Tholock says of Israel, that, " As 
no other nation of antiquity, it is a people of 
expectation," is equally true of the Church of the 
New Testament. It is anchored upward, not 
downward ; its drawing is forward, not backward ; 
" Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, 



THE UPLIFTED GAZE. 



both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into 
that within the veil, whither the forerunner is for 
us entered, even Jesus." As the ancient An-*' 
chorius bore t he anchor into port, and fastened 
it there, while as yet the ship could not enter, 
because of the tide ; so has our Prodromos — our 
Precursor — fixed the Church's hold within the 
veil, that it may not drift away through adverse 
winds or tides. But this anchoring is only a 
preparation for that entering which He shall 
effect for us when He shall come again to receive 
us unto Himself. 

What if those who are much occupied with 
looking up, zealous to " come behind in no gift, 
waiting for the coming of the Lord" should some- 
times be stigmatized as star-gazers and impracti- 
cable dreamers ? Let them rejoice that, in so 
acting, they prove themselves, not only the sons 
of primitive Christianity, but also the sons of 
primitive humanity. For, in the beginning, God 
made man upright, both physically and morally. 
Some tell us that the derivation of avOpanros — 
man — makes the word signify an uplooker. 1 Cer- 
tainly, this originally constituted his marked dis- 
tinction from the brutes that perish, that, while 

i " From this circumstance — man's elevated countenance — 
the Greeks plainly derived the name avOpwiros, because he looks 
upward." — Lactantius, Inst. ii. I. 



ECCE VENIT. 



they looked downwards towards the earth, which 
is their goal, he looked upward toward the heaven 
for which he was predestined. How significant 
the question which Jehovah puts to the first sin- 
ner of Adam's sons : " Why is thy countenance 
fallen ? " The wages of sin is death, and the 
goal of the sinner is the earth with its narrow 
house. So we find the whole apostate race, from 
the earliest transgressor onward, with counte- 
nance downcast and shadowed with mortality, 
moving toward the tomb and unable to lift up the 
eyes. But the sons of the second Adam appear 
looking steadfastly up to heaven and saying : 
"We see Jesus, who was made a little lower 
than the angels, for the suffering of death, 
crowned with glory and honor." His coronation 
has restored their aspiration : it has lifted their 
gaze upward once more to the throne. 

The tabernacle imagery is still further sugges- 
tive touching the subject under consideration. 
Ask the ritualist, clothed in his rich vestments, 
and offering his eucharistic sacrifice upon the 
altar, why he does thus ; and the answer is, that 
the minister must repeat in the Church on earth 
what our Great High Priest is doing in the true 
tabernacle above. But if this principle were 
faithfully carried out, it would prove the death- 
warrant of ritualism. The great day of atone- 



THE UPLIFTED GAZE. 



ment is now passing ; let all sacrifices and ser- 
vices cease without the veil. Oh, ye self-ordained 
priests, why do ye " stand daily ministering and 
offering, oftentimes, the same sacrifices which 
can never take away sins ? " Behold, " this Man, 
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, 
sat down on the right hand "of God, from hence- 
forth expecting till His foes be made His footstool." 
They most literally reflect His ministry on earth 
who, at the communion, sit down to remember 
the sacrifice of Calvary, but not to repeat it ; who 
listen to the " Till He come," which it whispers, 
and so unite with Him in His "expecting." He 
waits for the same event for which He bids us 
wait, His triumphal return. And for the congre- 
gation before the veil, not worship, but work and 
witnessing, are now the principal calling, — work 
and witnessing with special reference to that glo- 
rious consummation which our Saviour is antici- 
pating. For, as He assigns us our service, this 
is the language of His commission : " Occupy till 
I come ; " and, as He appoints us our testimony, 
this is the purport of it : " And this gospel of the 
Kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a 
witness to all nations ; and then shall the end 
come.' 1 

Indeed, let us observe that, since Christ took 
His place of expectancy within the veil, and as- 



8 ECCE VENIT. 



signed us our place of expectancy without the 
veil, all present duties and spiritual exercises have 
henceforth an onward look ; an advent adjust- 
ment, like the needle to the pole. " The solemn 
Maranatha resounds throughout the Scriptures, 
and forms the key-note in all their exhortations, 
consolations, warnings." 1 Is holy living urged? 
This is the inspiring motive thereto : " That, 
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should 
live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present 
world, looking for that blessed hope and tlie glori- 
ous appearing of the great God and our Saviour 
Jeszis Christ" (Titus ii. 13). Is endurance un- 
der persecution and loss of goods enjoined ? This 
is the language of the exhortation : " Cast not 
away, therefore, your confidence, which hath 
great recompense of reward. For yet a little 
zvhile and He that shall come zvill come and will 
not tarry" (Heb. x. 35-37). Is patience under 
trial encouraged in the Christian ? The admo- 
nition is : " Be ye also patient ; stablish your 
hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh " 
(James v. 8). Is sanctification set before us for 
our diligent seeking ? The duties leading up to 
it culminate in this : " And the very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your whole 
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless 

1 Van Oosterzee. 



THE UPLIFTED GAZE. 9 

at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ''' (i Thess. 
v. 23). Is diligence in caring for the flock of 
God enjoined upon pastors ? This is the reward : 
" Feed the flock of God which is among you, tak- 
ing the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but 
willingly ; . . . and when tJie CJiief Shepherd shall 
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that 
fadeth not away " (1 Peter v. 4). Is fidelity to 
the gospel trust charged upon the ministry ? This 
is the end thereof : " That thou keep this com- 
mandment without spot, unrebukable, until the 
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Tim. vi. 
14). And again: "I charge thee in the sight of 
God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the 
quick and the dead, and by His appearing and 
His kingdom, preach the word" (2 Tim. iv. 1). 
Space would fail us, indeed, to cite passages of 
this purport ; they so abound that we may say 
that the key to which the chief exhortations to 
service and consecration are pitched in the New 
Testament is : "To the end He may stablish your 
hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even 
our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 
with all His saints" (1 Thess. hi. 13). 

The reader of these and many other texts of 
like import will observe how God has thus 
marked His admonitions with the rising inflec- 
tion, as though to save our Christian living from 



ECCE VENIT. 



depression and monotony. Duty done for duty's 
sake becomes commonplace ; activity inspired bv 
the possible nearness of death has a certain 
downward emphasis unbecoming the children of 
the kingdom. Therefore duty — that which is 
due — is less insisted on in the gospel, as a 
motive, than reward, — that which mav be at- 
tained ; and as for the imminence of death as an 
inspiration to devotedness, we never find it once 
mentioned. It is the advent of the King of 
glory, " BcJwld, I conic quickly ; and My reward 
is with Me to give to every man according as his 
work shall be," and not the advent of the kins: of 
terrors, that constitutes the incentive to Chris- 
tian earnestness. However low the note which 
is struck in God's discipline of His people, it is 
always keyed to a lofty pitch to which it is cer- 
tain to rise ; and if, as in one familiar instance, 
the inspired discourse drops to the ground-tones 
of death and doom, — "// is appointed unto men 
once to die, but after this the judgment '" — it is 
only that it may mount immediately to the ex- 
alted strain to which the whole Xew Testament 
is tuned, — " So Christ was once offered to bear 
the sins of many, and unto them that look for 
Him shall He appear a second time without sin 
unto salvation " (Heb. ix. 28). 

Never did a Christian asre so sreatlv need to 



THE UPLIFTED GAZE. II 

have its attitude readjusted to the primitive stand- 
ard as our own, — commerce, so debased with 
greed of gold ; science, preaching its doctrine 
of "dust thou art;" and Christian dogmatics, 
often darkening hope with its eschatology of 
death ! The face of present-day religion is to 
such degree prone downward that, if some Joseph 
appears, with his visions of the sun, moon, and 
stars, men exclaim : " Behold, this dreamer com- 
eth." But they that say such things plainly de- 
clare that they do not "seek a country." There 
is a tradition that Michael Angelo, by his pro- 
longed and unremitting toil upon the frescoed 
domes which he wrought, acquired such a ha- 
bitual upturn of the countenance that, as he 
walked the streets, strangers would observe his 
bearing, and set him down as some visionary or 
eccentric. It were well if we who profess to be 
Christians of the apostolic school had our conver- 
sation so truly in heaven, and our faces so stead- 
fastly set thitherward, that sometimes the " man 
with the muck-rake" should be led to wonder at 
us, and to look up with questioning surprise from 
his delving for earthly gold and glory. Massillon 
declares that, " in the days of primitive Chris- 
tianity, it would have been deemed a kind of 
apostasy not to sigh for the return of the Lord." 
Then, certainly, it ought not now to be counted 



ECCE VENIT. 



an eccentricity to "love His appearing," and to 
take up with new intensity of longing the prayer 
which He has taught us: "Even so, come Lord 
Jesus." Amid all the disheartenment induced 
by the abounding iniquity of our times ; amid the 
loss of faith and the waxing cold of love within 
the Church ; and amid the outbreaking of law- 
lessness without, causing men's hearts to fail 
them for fear, and for looking after those things 
that are coming on the earth, — this is our Lord's 
inspiring exhortation : " Look up and lift up your 
heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." 






II. 

TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 

Cen-turies have passed since our great High 
Priest disappeared behind the cloud-curtain of 
the heavenly sanctuary ; and His Church, like the 
people of old who waited for Zacharias, has " mar- 
velled that He tarrieth so long in the temple." 
Pondering the sacred promises of His return, 
which are written for our hope, we find warnings 
of startling immediateness, but also mysterious 
suggestions of possible long delay. In the post- 
ascension gospel of Revelation, the word is con- 
stantly sounding out, "Behold, I come quickly ;" 
while in the parables of the kingdom, contained 
in the closing chapters of the Gospel according 
to Matthew, we read, " While the Bridegroom tar- 
ried ; " and "After a long time, the Lord of those 
servants cometh and reckoneth with them." Yet 
both of these gospels have the same key-note : 
" Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day 
nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh " 
(Matt. xxv. 13) ; and "Blessed is he that watcheth 
and keepeth his garments" (Rev. xvi. 15). Hence 
we conclude that these texts are parts of a com- 



14 ECCE VENIT. 



plex system of prophecy, wherein incitements to 
hope and checks to impatience are so perfectly 
balanced as to keep the Church ever expectant, 
while restraining her from being ever despond- 
ent. For nothing can be plainer to the unpre- 
judiced reader of the New Testament than that 
it is the purpose of the ascended Bridegroom 
to have his Bride constantly, soberly, and busily 
waiting for His return, until the appointed time of 
His detention in the heavens shall have expired. 1 
Hence " He has harmonized with consummate 
skill every part of His revelation to produce this 
general result ; now speaking as if a few seasons 
more were to herald the new earth, now as if His 
days were thousands of years ; at one moment 
whispering into the ear of His disciple, at another 
retreating into the depth of infinite ages. It is 
His purpose thus to live in our faith and hope, 
remote yet near, pledged to no moment, possible 
at any ; worshipped, not with the consternation of 
a near, or the indifference of a distant, certainty, 
but with the anxious vigilance that awaits a con- 



1 " The heaven that gives back Christ gives back all we have 
loved and lost, solves all doubts, and ends all sorrows. His 
coming looks in upon the whole life of His Church, as a lofty 
mountain peak looks in upon every little valley and sequestered 
home about its base, and belongs to them all alike. Every gen- 
eration lies under the shadow of it." — Rev. John Ker. 



TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 15 

tingency ever at hand. This, the deep devotion of 
watchfulness, humility, and awe, He who knows 
us best knows to be the fittest posture of our 
spirits ; therefore does He preserve the salutary 
suspense that ensures it, and therefore will He 
determine His advent to no definite day in the 
calendar of eternity." 1 

How could revelation be so adjusted as to se- 
cure this end — the perpetual watchfulness of the 
Church for the Redeemer's second coming — 
without, in the event of long delay, subjecting 
the Lord to the imputation of having deceived His 
flock, or the inspired apostles to the charge of 
being mistaken in the hopes which they cherished 
for themselves, and which they nourished in those 
to whom they wrote ? We shall find the true 
answer to these questions by searching the Scrip- 
ture to learn how God has actually effected this 
result. 

Observe, in the first place, the union of the 
known and the unknown in this great problem of 
the advent consummation ; a union exactly fitted 
to inspire the Church with sacred curiosity to 
search diligently and constantly for its solution. 
For just as there is in revelation a dogmatic 
certainty as to the fact of Christ's return, " The 
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a 

1 Archer Butler. 



1 6 ECCE VENIT. 



shout" so there is a dogmatic uncertainty as to 
the time of His return : " But of that day and that 
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which arc 
in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." By 
this combination of the revealed and the unre- 
pealed, perennial interest and inspiring search are 
ensured, which were utterly impossible if either 
one of these elements were wanting. Take away 
the certainty as to the fact of Christ's coming, 
and tell us that He may never return, and at once 
the wing of hope is paralyzed, and the eye of vig- 
ilance closed ; take away the uncertainty as to 
the time of Christ's coming, and tell us that 
a definite thousand years of millennial blessedness 
stands between us and the advent ; or have told 
the early disciples that at least eighteen centuries 
must elapse before their Lord should come back, 
— and looking for His immediate return were 
utterly impossible, so that the watchman's vigil 
must cease and the virgin's lamp be quenched. 
Therefore, by a wise combining of the known 
and the unknown factors in the construction of 
prophecy, there have been secured the most 
powerful stimulant to watchfulness, and the most 
salutary check to presumption. 

By the succession of prophetic fulfilments the 
same result is promoted. It is a part of the divine 
plan to give an onward look to all predestined 



TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 17 

events ; prophecy no sooner becomes history 
than history in turn becomes prophecy, accom- 
plished facts passing into foretypes of greater 
facts to come. "A little while and ye shall not 
see Me," said Jesus in His last discourse with His 
disciples, " and again a little while and ye shall 
see Me " (John xvi. 16). After two days of burial 
they did see Him, coming forth from the grave, 
and ending the " little while " of their lonely sep- 
aration in the joy of the resurrection fellowship. 
But the forty days of risen earthly life soon ter- 
minated and He went to the Father, and again 
they saw Him not. Yet after another " little 
while " of waiting the day of Pentecost arrived ; 
and then, as the Holy Ghost descended, they 
beheld Him again spiritually, as He had promised, 
— oxpeo-Qc jxe. Thus was His word fulfilled : " I will 
not leave you orphans ; / will come to you." But 
the end of the Master's gracious prediction had 
not been reached : the expectation had rather 
been lifted up and carried on, through what Stier 
calls "the typico-propJietical perspective" of this 
prediction, to that still further coming in which 
these others were to find their consummation. 
Therefore the writer of the Epistle to the He- 
brews, addressing those who had " tasted the 
heavenly gift" and been made "partakers of the 
Holy Ghost," takes up the promise yet once more, 



1 8 ECCE VENIT. 



and repeats it with exquisite pathos : " For yet a 
little while — how little ', how little — and He that 
is coming shall come, and shall not tarry" (x. 37). 
Can it be that nineteen centuries were to be in- 
cluded in our Lord's "little while," or has He 
forgotten His word, we ask ? And the apostle 
Peter answers : " But, beloved, ! be not ignorant 
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord 
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
day. The Lord is not slack concerning His prom- 
ise " (2 Pet. iii. 8, 9). If those to whom these 
words were written could not comprehend them, 
we can do so in the light of accomplished time. 
Christ's resurrection is the miniature of that of 
His Church, both in circumstance and in time. It 
is written in the prophet Hosea : " After two days 
will He revive us ; in the third day He will raise 
us up, and we shall live in His sight " (vi. 2). Our 
Lord's two days in the tomb are but a brief of the 
Church's two millenniums under humiliation and 
mortality ; as also an epitome of Israel's two mil- 
lenniums of rejection and cutting-off. But with 
Him we expect that, on the third day, God will 
raise us both up, and we shall live in His sight. 
Thus the " little while " that covered the two days 
of our Saviour's burial stretches across the two 
millennial days of the Church's militant state. 
But, measured on the scale of eternity, " how lit- 



TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 19 

tie, how little," is the time of waiting until we 
see Him again ! This is an illustration of the 
prophetic perspective which belongs to many 
portions of Scripture, and it shows how God has 
provided for the raising and carrying forward of 
our vision to the one coming in which all others 
culminate. 

Other examples equally striking might be cited ; 
as, for instance, that prediction and transaction : 
" Verily I say unto you, There be some standing 
here which shall not taste of death till they see 
the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. And af- 
ter six days He was transfigured before them " 
(Matt. xvi. 28). A miniature rehearsal of His 
glorious coming was here exhibited, enacted upon 
a miniature scale of chronology, — "after six days" 
— and presenting in vivid epitome that sabbatic 
glory which is to dawn when the world's weary 
working days are over. And the scene remains 
for all time, not as a type simply, but as an actual 
first instalment, as St. Peter interprets it, " of 
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ " 
(2 Pet. i. 16). 

If we note the events that were predicted to 
precede and herald the second advent — the ap- 
pearance of Antichrist and the widespread preach- 
ing of the gospel — we find the same successive 
fulfilments, and the same consequent quickening 



20 ECCE VENIT. 



of expectation. " Little children," writes John, 
" it is the last time : as we have heard that Anti- 
christ shall come, even now are there many anti- 
christs ; whereby we know that it is the last 
time" (i John ii. 18). These to which he refers 
were but incipient antichrists, feeble prototypes 
of that which was to follow ; but their presence 
was enough to bring the end of the age and the 
return of Christ into vivid expectation. A few 
centuries later we find the Church, with St. Paul's 
Thessalonian prediction in its hands, — - " For that 
day shall not come except there come a falling 
away first, and that Man of Sin be revealed," — 
watching the impending fall of the Roman Em- 
pire, and expecting to see that Wicked One 
emerge from its ruins ; since it was an apostolic 
tradition that the empire was the hindering power 
that must be taken out of the way before he could 
be revealed. 1 



1 " We are now in the end and consummation of the world, 
the fatal time of Antichrist is at hand." — Cyprian, 3d century. 
" Who is he that letteth ? Who but the Roman Empire ? the 
breaking up and dispersion of which among the ten kings shall 
bring on Antichrist. And then shall be revealed that Wicked 
One whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the Spirit of His 
mouth." — Tertullian y 3d century. "This — the predicted An- 
tichrist — shall come when the time of the Roman Empire shall 
be fulfilled and the consummation of the world approach." — 
Lactanthcs, 4th century. 



TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 21 

The anticipation cast a solemn gloom over the 
imagination of Christians ; but it touched and 
kindled that gloom with the brightest hope, since 
it was known that, however terrible the monster, 
his appearance would be the precursor of the 
appearing of Christ, who would destroy him by 
the brightness of His coming. Thus was the 
advent - consummation brought again into vivid 
relief. The conception gathered from the pro- 
phetic Scriptures was that of a single man, the 
incarnation of diabolical wickedness, raging and 
reigning for three years and a half, and then 
destroyed by the lightning-flash of the epiphany. 
Such an idea was natural, and tended again to 
draw the parousia into startling proximity to the 
generation then living. But as centuries of ful- 
filling history began to throw their interpreta- 
tion into prophecy, another conception inevitably 
emerged. Have we seen, over the shops, those 
curious changeable signs that present one name 
to the eye as we approach — which gradually dis- 
solves in passing — and another name as we look 
back and read again ? So with this prediction of 
Antichrist. To the early Church looking forward 
it seemed to foretell an individual Man of Sin, of 
three-years-and-six-months' reign. But when, out 
of the gloom and blood of the Middle Ages, the 
students of prophecy looked backward, they be- 



2 2 ECCE VENIT. 



gan to see what the apostolic Church could have 
hardly dreamed of, — a corporate Antichrist ; the 
miniature Man of Sin, who had been expected, 
now magnified into a monstrous pseudo-Christian 
hierarchy ; the Apocalyptic beast bestriding the 
centuries, red in tooth and claw with the blood of 
saints ; his twelve hundred and sixty days' do- 
minion expanded into as many years, constituting 
for the Church an era of unparalleled suffering 
and travail and tears ; and as they saw and bore 
witness, once more there burst forth from the 
Church, from her prophets and reformers, such 
an advent-shout, "Behold He cometh," as cen- 
turies had not witnessed. 1 To say that the ear- 
lier interpreters were more likely to be correct 
in their conception of Antichrist than we, upon 
whom the end of the age is dawning, is to say 
that those who gathered from our Lord's myste- 
rious predictions — " This generation shall not 
pass until," and "there be some standing here 
who shall not taste of death till they see" — the 

1 " Antichrist is already known throughout all the world. 
Wherefore the day is not far off." — Latimer on 2 Thess. ii. 3, 
1535. "O England, England, beware of Antichrist! Take 
heed he doth not deceive thee." — " / trust our Redeemer'' s com- 
ing is at hand.'''' — Bradford the Martyr, 1555. "I believe that 
all the signs which are to precede the last day have already hap- 
pened. The gospel is preached throughout the world : the Son 
of perdition is revealed.' 1 '' — Luther, 1517. 



TARRYING WITHIN- THE VEIL. 23 

impression that the kingdom of God should im- 
mediately appear, more truly understood Him than 
we who have for our assistance the exegesis of 
providential events which eighteen centuries have 
been drawing out. It is enough to observe that, 
by a marvellous adjustment of prophecy and his- 
tory, the watchers in the early Church, and in the 
modern Church alike, have found constant incite- 
ment to expectation. 

To sum up our observations on this point : The 
long interval of apostasy and trial which lay be- 
fore the Church ere the advent should arrive was 
both revealed and concealed in prophecy, — re- 
vealed even to the minutest circumstance and 
detail ; yet in such hieroglyphic symbols * and 
chronology that it should remain graciously con- 

1 The miniature symbols are such as these : A beast for 
Antichrist, an enthroned harlot for the apostate Church ; an 
exiled bride for the true Church, two candlesticks for faithful 
witnessing Churches. The miniature chronology accompanying 
these is the mystical number variously expressed, — " time, times 
and half a time," "forty and two months," " a thoitsand two hun- 
dred and threescore days," etc. Since the symbols have been 
proved to stand for age-long realities, it seems incontestable that 
the chronology must stand for a correspondingly long period. 
Hence, since it covers the watching-time of the Church's history, 
it is always expressed enigmatically, that it might not be under- 
stood too early. The millennium, on the contrary, belonging to 
the time beyond the Lord's advent and the Church's waiting, is 
expressed in plain terms, — " a thousand years." 



24 ECCE VENIT. 



cealed until history should furnish the Rosetta 
Stone for its interpretation. The Apocalypse — 
which was to be the Church's vade-mecum through 
the long dark ages — was written in cipher, that 
it might not be comprehended prematurely, and 
thereby bring discouragement to the faithful ; 
but events were commissioned to yield up the 
key to that cipher in due time, that the wise 
might understand and look up. To the first 
generation of Christians this guide-book seemed 
to show the Lord's coming near at hand ; but 
when His coming was delayed, later generations 
could see that, according to the sure word of 
prophecy, it must have been so ; and thus, in- 
stead of disappointment, there was a confirmation 
of Scripture that only gave new vigor to hope. 

Holding that the Book of Revelation is the 
prophetic history of the Christian Church from 
our Lord's ascension to His return to usher in the 
millennium, we find that in itself it is a marvellous 
symbol. As given into the hand of the glorified 
Lamb to open, it is described as " a book written 
within and on the back side, sealed with seven 
seals" which seals represent the successive chap- 
ters of the Church's suffering and judgment 
throughout this dispensation. 

Now, if by a "book" were meant the same 
thing which we describe by that word, the reader 



TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 25 

could turn the leaves through, and look onward 
at once to the last page to learn the issue. But 
here is a roll, sealed with seven seals, and only 
as history slowly unwinds that roll can its succes- 
sive chapters be read. Hence mark the won- 
drous plan by which the reader's expectation is 
kept alert as it is unfolded. There are seven 
seals ; under the seventh seal seven trumpets, 
and under the seventh trumpet seven vials. Now, 
the pondering and expectant Church reads chap- 
ter after chapter as the successive seals are 
loosed ; and how anticipation kindles and glows 
upon the opening of the seventh, which is known 
to be the last ! But, lo ! under the seventh seal 
appear seven trumpets, — seven sub-divisions of 
the seventh chapter, — and so once more the 
expectation is checked, and then lifted and borne 
onward. But when angel after angel of judgment 
has sounded, and the seventh trumpet is ready to 
blow, what awed and solemn anticipation is once 
more roused, since it was under this that "the 
mystery of God should be finished, as he hath de- 
clared to His servants the prophets " (Rev. x. 7). 
But under the seventh trumpet again are seven 
vials, — seven chapters still of judgment under 
the last great chapter, — and once more the wait- 
ing Church looks onward ; not in disappointment, 
but in hope, made stronger by experience, until 



26 ECCE VENIT. 



the seventh vial is poured out, and the voice from 
heaven shall cry, "It is done" (Rev. xvi. 17). 

As the Apocalypse is the Church's preor- 
dained history, so is this symbolic scroll the fac- 
simile of that history. It is written within and 
without, just as the secular and sacred stand 
related to each other in their accomplishment ; 
the history of the world and the history of the 
Church being the obverse and the reverse sides 
of the same transaction, the one permitted in the 
providence of God to shape the other, and the 
other to interpret the one ; and these two mov- 
ing together as time unwinds the scroll of pre- 
arranged events. But what chapters within chap- 
ters ! What fulfilment opening out of fulfilment, 
all alluring and onleading the hope towards that 
one divine event for which the whole creation 
groans ! We remember sailing over a beautiful 
lake in Switzerland, journeying to the village that 
lay at its opposite end. Again and again, as the 
encircling hills shut in about us, the further shore 
seemed close at hand, and our destination nearly 
reached. But, rounding a projecting point, the 
aspect would change, the mountains would part 
once more, and another broad expanse of water 
would lie stretched out before us. Thus, by a 
singular peculiarity of the landscape, the jour- 
ney's end seemed always imminent, and yet con- 



TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 27 

stantly receding. It was striking to observe how 
this feature of the journey affected the voyagers. 
Not a passenger was found at the ship's stern 
gazing backward. Every one was on the look- 
out. All eyes were bent forward in eager expec- 
tation, till at last the destined harbor was reached. 
Now all the commands and promises of Christ 
put us on the outlook, and every great junc- 
ture of fulfilling history sets us watching to dis- 
cern whether the day-dawn is not approaching, 
whether the eternal hills are not closing in to 
bring the end of the age. The impulse which 
inspires us to watch, to expect, to be ready to 
disembark, however vain it may seem to men, 
has both the authority of God's word and the 
admonitions of all the history of the Church for 
its support. And, more than this, while none 
can know the day or the hour of the advent, we 
carry with us a chart of the Church's history to 
tell us approximately where in our stormy and 
perilous voyage we are. Its weird, mysterious 
pages contain the whole map and delineation of 
the Church's career from the ascension to the 
return of the Lord ; but it was left for time to 
break the seals of this book and to discover its 
meaning. This it has been doing ; and as, cor- 
responding to this chart, headland after headland 
of the prophetic history has been descried, these 



28 ECCE VENIT. 



have been recognized by the students who have 
been searching diligently what and what manner 
of time the Spirit did signify in penning this 
prophecy ; and, though they have read no an- 
nouncement of day or hour upon them, they have 
found them displaying the same cautionary sig- 
nal with which the Church started : " Behold, 1 
come quickly : hold fast that which thott hast, that 
no man take thy crown" (Rev. iii. u). It is a 
warning startling enough to indicate that, though 
we know not how near the end of the age we 
may be, yet we are nearing it. 

" Let your loins be girded about and your 
lights burning," therefore. There is enough of 
certainty in this subject to feed the lamp of our 
faith ; and enough of uncertainty to make us 
very careful and solicitous lest when the Bride- 
groom comes we be found among the foolish 
virgins, saying, "Our lamps are gone out." 

The chief point is, that this hope have a liv- 
ing and abiding place in our affections and our 
thoughts. " Thought," says a Christian father, 
" is the sleepless lamp of the soul." It is a lamp, 
indeed, that burns with varying brightness, — 
flaming up in moments of intense study and ut- 
terance, and dying down in sleep till there is only 
the pale glimmer that remains in dreams. But it 
is a lamp that is never really quenched ; for how- 



TARRYING WITHIN THE VEIL. 29 

ever profound the slumber, it only requires a word 
to wake us, and to bring all our mental powers 
into instant activity. Thus must it be with the 
holy lamp of watchfulness, — always trimmed and 
burning, but not of necessity always shining in 
full strength. That is to say, we need not be 
every moment thinking of Christ's return, talking 
of it, and preaching it. There should be ever in 
our hearts the calm certainty and the sober hope 
that keep us ready for this event at any moment. 
But this hope should rather minister to us than 
be ministered to by us. Instead of perpetually 
dwelling on it and reiterating it, we should be 
lighted by it in our busy toil of gathering the 
guests for the marriage feast, and doing the work 
which our absent Lord has committed to us. 
Ready always to give to every man that asketh 
a reason for the hope that is in us, we should yet 
show the value of our lamp by the holy service 
into which it guides our feet, and the diligent 
piety which it makes visible in our lives. 



III. 

THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 

Christ is not only coming in power at the last 
day, but the power of His coming is to be com 
stantly operating in the present day. As God 
has appointed the moon to lift the tide by its at- 
traction, that it may flood and fill all the inden- 
tures of the coast, so has He ordained this great 
event of Christ's parousia to draw up the faith 
and hope and love of the Church, when these have 
ebbed towards the world. If the philosopher is 
counted to have embodied the highest practical 
wisdom in his maxim, " Hitch your wagon to a 
star," can we question the efficacy of the divine 
method which has fastened all our hopes to " tJie 
Bright and Morning Star" ? For, indisputably, 
the chief motive by which duties, obligations, as- 
pirations, and attainments are determined in the 
New Testament is this, the ever-imminent return 
of the Lord from heaven. Therefore even the 
highest commendation that could be put upon 
a primitive church — "ye come behind in no gift " 
— was not so high that this crown could be 
omitted from it, " waiting for the coming of our 



THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 31 

Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. i. 7). Such a tribute 
sounds strange to the Church of to-day, because 
she has so much accustomed herself to steer by 
the compass of her creed, instead of by the star 
of her hope ; and to measure her position by the 
dead-reckoning of ecclesiastical history, instead of 
determining it by observation of those heavenly 
lights which God has given to rule the day and 
to rule the night. Yet here is a motive so tran- 
scendently powerful that, were it taken away, the 
Church would lose her upward gravitation. 1 

It is easy to say that absorption in the state of 
glory tends to render us careless concerning the 
serious claims of the state of humiliation. But 
we believe that quite the contrary is true. For 
our present not only makes our future, but is 
made by it ; and that Christian alone can live well 
in the life that now is, who lives much in the life 
that is to come. As one has well written : " Only 
from the point of view of eschatology can we 
understand aright the problems of the human 
life ; for only when we recognize what is the final 
aim of life and being can we also set forth the 

1 "All the Apostolic exhortations and consolations are so 
closely connected with the prospect of the personal return of the 
Lord, that whoever contradicts this last, thereby takes away the 
roof and cornice from the structure of Apostolic Theology." — 
Van Oosterzee. 



ECCE VENIT. 



goal to all the efforts of man. Therefore it has 
been said from an early period, Re spice finem" 

Do we apprehend the total change of outlook 
which Christ has effected for the believer by His 
redemption, transforming a "fearful looking-for 
of judgment " into a joyful " looking for that blessed 
Jiope " ? A sinner cannot look upward if he real- 
izes his doom ; a saint cannot look downward if 
he realizes his destiny. How deplorably, there- 
fore, do they lower the standard of redemption 
who, by substituting tJianatology for eschatology, 
fix our anticipations upon our departure through 
the gates of the grave, instead of lifting them to 
Christ's return through the gates of glory. If we 
make Death our hope, let us not be surprised if 
others learn to make him their hero. 1 

What, let us ask, are the attainments of the 
Christian life most insisted on in Scripture, and 
yet the most difficult to achieve, and how does 

1 Professor Duncan, commenting on the famous book of Car- 
lyle, exclaims : " Hero-worship ! Ah, well ! he and I have to meet 
a strange hero yet— Qauaros — the greatest that I know of next 
to Him who overcame him." Let us look to it that by our death- 
homage, expressed in such mortuary poetry as, 

" Death is the crown of life, . . . 

Death gives us more than was in Eden lost, 
The King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace," 

we do not take the crown from the head of the greater and place 
it on the head of the less. 



THE TOWER OF HIS COMING. 33 

the hope of Christ's personal return affect 
them ? 

Unworldliness, in the midst of the present evil 
world ! — there is nothing which so powerfully 
promotes it as the realization that He whose ser- 
vants we are may appear at any moment to reckon 
with us, and take us out of this world. Why is 
it that so many Christians make Death their ex- 
ecutor, leaving thousands and millions to be dis- 
pensed by his bony fingers ? Because they are 
exitists, rather than adventists ; their going, and 
not Christ's coming, being the goal towards which 
they calculate. Therefore, if they die their wealth 
can stay behind : their covetousness can still sur- 
vive and reap post-mortem usury. Living men, 
transporting their riches in daily installments into 
the world to come ; or dead men remitting back 
their fortunes into this world, and still fingering 
the interest thereof in mortuary incomes, — here 
are the two ideals : and our Lord has plainly in- 
dicated which should be the Christian's in His 
saying, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures on 
earth ; but lay up for yourselves treasures in 
heaven." And can there be any doubt that, if 
the position to which we have been called and 
raised by Christ's enthronement were really occu- 
pied and exulted in by us, — " For our citizenship 
is in heaven, from whence also we look for the 



34 ECCE VENIT. 



Saviour" — the achievement of making heavenly 
investments would be easy and inevitable, and the 
grip of avarice be unclasped from the purse-strings 
of multitudes of Christians ? The old nature is 
not sufficient for itself ; and as truly as " the ex- 
pulsive power of a new affection " is needed to 
overcome the heart-contraction of self-love, so 
truly is the uplifting power of a new hope required 
to break that purse-contraction of self-enrichment 
which is now the greatest obstacle to the evan- 
gelization of the world. The logic is inevitable; 
if we are citizens of heaven, we are " strangers 
and pilgrims in the earth ;" and every rational in- 
stinct will lead us to make our investments where 
we hold our residence. 

Not less difficult to overcome is that worldly- 
mindedness which seeks a present reward and 
a present glory. "But it shall not be so among 
you," is the decisive rebuke of our Lord to such 
aspirations. But how not ? By the vision of a 
millennial crown and throne, the heart is recon- 
ciled to a present cross and humiliation. "We 
have forsaken all and followed Thee ; what shall 
we have, therefore ? " "Ye that have followed 
Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall 
sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit 
upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel " (Matt. xix. 28). A dispensation of re- 



THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 35 

proach for the Church cannot be perpetual ; 
neither can a dispensation of glory be premature. 
The disciple must wait ; but, in waiting for the 
reign of Immanuel, he is waiting for his own 
reign as heir-apparent to a crown of glory. Let 
us not, through a false humility, reject the doc- 
trine of rewards, which Scripture so strongly 
emphasizes. But when and where ? are the all- 
important questions. Constantly do we hear it 
said of one deceased, " He has gone to his re- 
ward." But, from the testimony of the Word, 
tell us where the believer is directed to look for 
his recompense at death ? He is taught to aspire 
to a crown. But we are not to infer, because it 
is said, "Be thou faithful unto death," — that is, 
up to the point of suffering martyrdom for Me, — 
"and I will give thee a crown of life," that our 
dying day is our crowning day, and that St. 
Sepulchre has been especially commissioned to 
preside at our coronation. To those who share 
Christ's travail and sorrow in the present life, for 
the rescuing of souls, a coronet of joy is promised. 
And when ? " For what is our hope, or joy, or 
crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the 
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?" 
(i Thess. ii. 19.) To those who have chosen the 
portion of suffering with Christ in this world, as 
a little flock, it is written : "And when the Chief 



36 ECCE VENIT. 



Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of 
glory that fadeth not away " (i Peter v. 4). To 
the steadfast soldier, who has fought the good 
fight, and finished his course, and kept the faith, 
the assurance is : " Henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the 
righteous judge shall give me at that day ; and not 
to me only, but unto all them also that love His 
appearifig" (2 Tim. iv. 8). Of that other crown 
— the fourth — the time of the bestowal is not 
mentioned : " Blessed is the man that endureth 
temptation ; for when he hath been approved he 
shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord 
promised to them that love Him " (James i, 
12, r. v.). But since it is the corona vita?, it is 
evident that it will be given at Christ's advent, 
when forever "death is swallowed up in victory," 
and not at our decease, when for the time life 
is swallowed up in defeat. Most inspiring is this 
doctrine of an open and final award to Christian 
fidelity. Martyrs have grasped it from afar, and 
been upheld amid the flames ; and we, who are 
not called to suffer like them, learn also to exult 
in it as that which shall bring our vindication 
against such as contemn us, because we run not 
with them to the same excess of riot in world- 
getting and gain-grasping. For there is a real 
choice of recompense. Let no one say that this 



THE POWER OF HIS COMING. Zl 

world has nothing to give the Christian ; it has. 
Three times our Lord pronounces that solemn sen- 
tence concerning religious man-pleasers, " Verily 
I say unto you, they have their reward." The 
preeminent question is, whether there is power 
enough in the Redeemer's proffer, "Behold, I 
come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give 
to every man according as his work shall be," to 
disenchant the heart from this temporal and sor- 
did recompense ? Only when we realize our call- 
ing as the sons of God, " begotten again unto a 
lively hope," and made heirs of a reserved inher- 
itance, can it be so. "The servant abideth not 
in the house forever ; " and if we are only such, 
we shall demand day-wages, even as " the hireling 
looketh for the reward of his work." But "the 
son abideth ever," and therefore can "both hope 
and quietly wait " the final award of the inherit- 
ance. 

If we turn from the perils of worldly-minded 
Christians to the trials of serious saints, we find 
the advent-hope serving the same end. Unless 
one is completely in the spell of a delusive op- 
timism, he must often be appalled in contem- 
plating the condition of the world. A thousand 
millions of the race still strangers to any form of 
Christianity ; two thirds of nominal Christendom 
lapsed into an apostasy hardly better than pagan- 



3 & ECCE VENIT. 



ism ; and of the remaining third, only a meagre 
proportion really spiritual disciples ! Without, 
the whole world lying in the Wicked One ; and 
within, perpetual corruptions of doctrine, con- 
stant estrangements from the faith, daily repri- 
sals of the Prince of Darkness upon the domain 
of light ! A heart-swoon, like that which fell 
upon holy Daniel at the river Ulai, must some- 
times seize the thoughtful Christian in view of all 
this, from which only a vision of the Ancient of 
Days, coming in the clouds of heaven, can rouse 
him. As, amid the desperate corruptions of the 
Catholic Church just previous to the Reforma- 
tion, we find some who, having abandoned all 
hope from prelates and councils, took the name 
of "Expectants" and simply waited, "such must 
we become, if we would be saved from dishear- 
tenment. We must not only look forward to the 
deliverance of the Coming One, but sometimes 
take our seat with Him in His throne, and share 
His attitude and anticipation as He sits there, 
" expecting till His foes be made His footstool" 

Then for that great overshadowing woe of mor- 
tality and corruption, what is the cure but the 
coming of the Coming One? "Thou shalt be 
recompensed at the resurrection of the just" said 
our Lord, speaking concerning the good deed 
done to the poor. But, in the light of other 



THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 39 

Scriptures, we may say that there is no promise 
that has so general an application. If death be 
the payment of the debt of nature, the first resur- 
rection, at our Lord's appearing, will be the full 
repayment of the debt of grace. For this event 
will give us back all that we have lost : our 
friends in Christ, looking and speaking as they 
were wont ; our inheritance in an earth renewed 
and glorified ; and the temple of our body, no 
longer a house divided against itself through the 
conflict of sin, but raised up and re -dedicated 
with surpassing glory. Christ's redemption is 
not a compromise with Death, but a reimburse- 
ment for all of which he has robbed us, — a full 
refunding, exacted by the lawsuit of the atone- 
ment, of our defrauded inheritance. " I shall go 
to him, but he shall not return to me," was all 
that the broken-hearted David could utter con- 
cerning his dead child. But we who look for a 
Saviour can say more than this, since " them also 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." 
What a beautiful, prophetic suggestion there is 
for us in that record of the Bethany feast which 
immediately follows the story of the raising of 
Lazarus : "But Lazarus, which had been dead, 
whom He raised from the dead, was one of them 
that sat at the table with Him " (John xii. I, 
2). Often, in our advent anticipations, have we 



4-0 ECCE VENIT. 



dreamed of the arrival of the long-looked-for con- 
summation, and of our beloved dead suddenly re- 
appearing, taking the vacant chair at the table, 
greeting us with the old familiar look, and speak- 
ing to us in the old familiar tones. If but a 
dream, this certainly is true : that the parousia 
will bring a real restoration, not simply a trans- 
fer into some strange society of shadows and 
spirits. Many seem to take pride in death, since 
they have learned to call it their dies natalis ; 
but we confess that we are ashamed to die, 
rather than proud, since we know that in this 
event we shall have reached the pay-day of sin's 
wages. 1 Praised indeed be Immanuel, that dying 
now means our departing to be with Christ ; but, 
nevertheless, it is a return for which we now wait, 
— His return, and our return with Him. There- 
fore has the Holy Ghost drawn for us that mag- 
nificent vision of the Lord Himself descending 
from heaven with a shout ; and then, for the 
Church of all ages, is added the injunction : 

1 " For my own part, I must confess to you, that death, as 
death, appeareth to me as an enemy, and my nature doth abhor 
and fear it. But the thoughts of the coming of the Lord are 
most sweet and joyful to me ; so that, if I were but sure that I 
should live to see it, and that the trumpet should sound, and the 
dead should rise, and the Lord appear before the period of my 
age, it would be the joyfulest tidings to me in the world. Oh 
that I might see His kingdom come ! " — Richard Baxter. 



THE POWER OE HIS COMING. 41 

"Wherefore comfort one another with these 
words" (1 Thess. iv. 18). 

" Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty : 
they shall behold a land of far distances" (Isa. 
xxxiii. 17). Blessed is it if we are so long-sighted 
as to catch glimpses of that better country, amid 
the trial and turmoil of this ; but doubly blessed, 
if we can look down upon this country through 
the far-reaching vistas of that, viewing the pres- 
ent life from the exalted stand-point of our Re- 
deemer's throne. And this is permitted us. 
For there are what we may call spiritual rehear- 
sals of the advent rapture, in which, like Paul, 
we are " caught up into Paradise " and hear un- 
speakable words. Let those bear witness who 
have proved it, — and there are such, — how 
utterly the whole scene of life has been changed 
in such moments. " Like Philip, I was caught 
away by the Spirit," writes one, "and was found, 
not at Azotus, but in the advent cloud, seated 
with my Lord in the chariot of His descending 
glory. A fire devoured before Him, and it was 
very tempestuous round about Him. I heard 
Him call to the heavens from above, and to the 
earth, that He might judge His people, saying, 
' Gather my saints together unto Me, those that 
have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.' And 
as His redeemed ones came flying to Him, 'as a 



42 ECCE VENIT. 



cloud, and as the doves to their windows/ from 
every tribe and kindred of earth, I beheld such 
as had been left behind. What wringing of hands 
there was among those who had loved gold su- 
premely in a world which God so loved as to 
give His only Son for its redemption ! What 
blanched faces upon those who had fared sump- 
tuously and lived deliciously amid a starving and 
perishing race ! Many of them who did so 
seemed to have worn the name of Christians ; 
for, as I listened, I could hear a mighty wail 
borne up from them towards the descending 
Judge : ' Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
Thy name ? and in Thy name cast out devils ? and 
in Thy name done many wonderful works ? ' But 
He only answered them : ' I never knew you : 
depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.' Whether 
in the body or out of the body when this trans- 
port was upon me, I cannot tell. But never since 
it occurred has the world been the same to me ; 
nor can I think of its wealth, its luxury, its ease, 
its honors, without an instant prayer to be deliv- 
ered from making these my gods." 

Such "instant prayer" we may all well learn 
to offer, in the midst of our necessary work con- 
stantly sending up ejaculatory petitions that we 
may be delivered from the present evil Avorld, 
so that, when our Lord appears in the clouds of 



THE POWER OF HIS COMING. 43 

heaven, we may bound towards Him by a resist- 
less attraction, and be forever with Him. 1 Noth- 
ing can compensate for their loss who have elim- 
inated this advent-hope from their creed. One 
love conquers another ; and only by tasting " the 
powers of the world to come" can there be 
wrought in us a radical and enduring distaste for 
the vanities of the world that now is. Well, 
therefore, has one written concerning this hope, 
that, " of the life of watchfulness, patience, and 
heavenly-mindedness, it is the soul and power ; 
and history makes abundantly manifest that, 
where this prospect has temporarily receded in 
the Christian consciousness, the spiritual life also 
has declined. One may confidently say that to a 
healthy Christian life ' etwas Apocalyptisches" — 
something apocalyptical — also belongs ; and that 
obligation to observe the signs of the times can- 
not possibly be fulfilled so long as the question 
as to the final whither has not, at least in prin- 
ciple, received an answer." 

1 " O Almighty God, grant that those necessary works wherein 
we are engaged, whether in the affairs of Thy Church or of this 
world, may not prevail to hinder us ; but that, at the appearing 
and advent of Thy Son, we may hasten with joy to meet Him, 
who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one 
God, world without end. Amen." 



IV. 

THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 

It is remarkable to observe that the first coun- 
cil of the Christian Church ever convened should 
have outlined the whole scheme of redemption 
from Pentecost to the consummation of the ages. 
And whatever we may hold as to the binding 
authority of later councils, we must accept the 
deliverances of this at Jerusalem as final, since 
from the testimony of inspired Scripture we 
know that the Spirit so truly presided and guided 
in the assembly that in publishing its decisions 
it was written, "// seemed good to the Holy Ghost 
and to us "(Acts xv. 28). Jesus Christ is the 
Architect of the ages. Not only " all things were 
made by Him" — all worlds and systems of the 
material universe — but all the dispensations were 
planned and predestined by Him : " By whom 
also He made the ages " (Heb. i. 2). His Church 
was not set upon her course until a complete 
programme of her mission had been placed in 
her hands, the working -plan by which all her 
operations were to be directed. "Known unto 
God are all His works from the beginning of the 



THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 45 

ivorld" (Acts xv. 18) is the significant declara- 
tion which accompanies the publication of this 
programme. And, instead of being day-laborers 
working in ignorance, God would have us, as 
laborers together with Him, to understand the 
entire divine scheme by which our efforts are to 
be directed, that we may be saved alike from pre- 
sumption and from despair. 

" Simeon Jiath declared how God at the first did 
visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for 
His name " (Acts xv. 14). Here is the first act 
of the great programme. Because of the citation 
from the Old Testament which immediately fol- 
lows — " And to this agree the words of the 
prophets, as it is written : After this I will return, 
and will build again the tabernacle of David which 
is fallen down" — it has been inferred that this 
Gentile outgathering and the tabernacle upbuild- 
ing mean the same thing ; in other words, that 
the rearing of the tabernacle of David is a figura- 
tive expression for the building of the Church of 
Christ. By this superficial though not altogether 
unnatural explanation of the passage, the whole 
programme has been reduced to a single act, and 
the inference drawn that the preaching of the 
gospel in this dispensation is to issue in the con- 
version of "all the Gentiles." 

But it is only necessary to observe three things 



46 ECCE VENIT. 



in order to correct this misapprehension : First, 
that the citation here made from the closing 
chapter of the Book of Amos is clearly a predic- 
tion of the literal restoration of literal Israel, and 
their reinhabitance of their land ; for the words 
quoted are part of a passage which ends with this 
decisive language: " And I will plant them upon 
their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out 
of their land which I have given them, saith the 
Lord thy God" (Amos ix. 15). Observe again 
that in making this citation the Holy Ghost in- 
serts the words, not found in the original text, 
"After this I will return" and will build again, 
thus making the restoration of the Davidic tab- 
ernacle subsequent to the gathering out of the 
Church from the Gentiles, and connecting it 
directly with the personal return of the Lord. 
And, lastly, we are to notice that in announcing 
this election from among the Gentiles, it is not 
added, "in this are fulfilled the words of the 
prophets," but "with this harmonize — a-v^movaiv, 
sympJwnize — the words of the prophets." It is 
but saying that the parts of the great oratorio of 
redemption perfectly accord, though centuries lie 
between its different measures ; and then, to show 
us how they accord, the Holy Spirit sounds all 
the octaves thereof with a single sweep, and lets 
us listen to their grand unison. This, then, is the 



THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 47 

programme of redemption by which we are to 
work in evangelizing the world : — 

"First, God did visit the Gentiles to take out 
of them a people for His name. And to this agree 
the words of the prophets, as it is written : — 

"After this I will return and will build again the 
tabernacle of David which is fallen down ; and I 
will build again the ruins thereof and I will set 
it up : 

" In order that the residue of men might seek 
after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom 
My name is called, saith the Lord who doeth all 
these things." 

The three great stages of redemption are thus 
outlined in their order. 

The gathering of the Church is the first act, 
and this, having begun at Pentecost, is still go- 
ing on. All the descriptions of it contained in 
Scripture mark it as elective. From the word of 
Christ to His first disciples, " I have out-chosen 
you out of the world," to the triumph-song of the 
saved heard by the seer in Patmos, " Thou hast 
redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every 
kindred and tongue and people and nation," the 
Bride of Christ is always the Ecclesia, the called 
out. Nowhere is universal redemption predicted 
as the result of preaching the Gospel in this dis- 
pensation. If in the minds of those who are 



48 ECCE VENIT. 



accustomed to speak of the world's conversion 
there is a violent revulsion from this saying, we 
remind them that we are simply affirming the 
truth of the doctrine of election, and its applica- 
tion to this entire age. Most tenderly and rev- 
erently would we handle this solemn mystery of 
the Sovereign Will. " Who has not known pas- 
sion, cross, and travail of death," says Luther, 
"cannot treat of this theme without injury to 
man or enmity to God." But it is written in 
Scripture, and the verdict of the ages declares it 
true. For after eighteen centuries of Christian 
conquest the vast proportion of the world still 
"lieth in the Wicked One," and Christ's true 
Church is but a "little flock" in comparison. 
Only with pathetic sympathy for our fallen race 
in its ruin and helplessness can we contemplate 
this fact. And yet we must be reminded that all 
attempts to violate this decree by making the 
Church a multitudinous collection, instead of a 
gracious election, have only issued in apostasy. 
Sacramentarianism would take the world into the 
Church by instituting a baptized paganism instead 
of taking the Church out of the world by preach- 
ing spiritual regeneration ; and behold the result 
in a half-heathenized Christendom. Latitudina- 
rianism would make the Church coextensive with 
the world by preaching the gospel of universal 



THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 49 

salvation, — all men by nature the sons of God, — 
and thus, by crowding the Lord's house with " the 
children of the Wicked One," turn it into "the 
synagogue of Satan." Though it be in mystery, 
and sorrow and tears, we had best work on, there- 
fore, by the divine schedule, preaching the gospel 
among all nations for a witness that we may 
gather out for Christ a chosen and sanctified peo- 
ple, calmly answering those who say that God's 
ways are partial with His own words: "When 
that which is perfect is come, then that which is 
in part shall be done away." 

And yet, lest we should take too narrow a view 
of this theme, other considerations should not be 
overlooked. Christ is called " The Light of the 
World." The beams of sunlight both elect and 
irradiate ; taking out here and there from muddy 
pool or acrid dead sea a pure, crystalline drop 
and lifting it heavenward ; but also lighting and 
warming all the atmosphere by their radiance. 
So Christ, preached among the Gentiles, elects 
from them a holy flock, a regenerate Church ; but 
besides this, He changes the moral climate of the 
world so that such noxious growths as cannibal- 
ism, slavery, polygamy, and infanticide disappear. 
These two results inevitably attend the proclama- 
tion of the gospel ; regeneration saving some out 
of the world, and civilization putting something 



50 ECCE VENIT. 



of Christianity into the world : but by neither 
process as now going on is the millennium des- 
tined to be ushered in. 

Moreover, let us reflect that an election is never 
v an end in itself ; it is rather a means and prepara- 
tion for some vastly larger accomplishment. The 
body of the elect is really Christ's army, gathered 
by a divine conscription from every kindred and 
people, that they may attend Him as He goes 
forth to His final conquest of the world. "And 
they that are with Him are called and elect and 
faithful " (Rev. xvii. 14). Of this, however, we 
shall speak later. 

The second act of the divine programme now 
comes into view. " After this I will return and 
build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen 
down." By Christ's personal coming in glory, the 
conversion and restoration of Israel are to be 
accomplished. The reader has only to compare 
this order with the redemption schedule drawn 
out in the eleventh of Romans to see how per- 
fectly they agree. St. Paul, indeed, begins with 
the Jewish election, as St. James does with the 
Gentile election. And we must remember that 
the choosing out that is going on in this dispen- 
sation touches both : " not out of the Jews only, 
— but also out of the Gentiles " (Rom. ix. 24). But 
each apostle takes up the same succession of 



THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 5 1 

events ; first the Gentile outgathering, and then 
the Hebrew regathering. The hardening of the 
Jews which we now behold is declared by Paul 
to continue " until the fulness of the Gentiles be 
come in. And so all Israel shall be saved. As 
it is written : There shall come out of Zion the 
Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from 
Jacob" (Rom. xi. 25, 26). By the "fulness of the 
Gentiles" we understand the predestined num- -/ 
ber, the elect company gathered through the 
entire period of this dispensation to form the 
Bride of Christ. 1 When this number shall have 
been accomplished, then the conversion of Israel 
will occur and their national restoration to God's 
favor. The two parts of the aged Simeon's proph- 
ecy are strictly consecutive : " A light to lighten 
the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel " 
(Luke ii. 31, 32). The sun is the light of the 
earth, overspreading it with his beams and elect- 
ing and drawing up from it the pure water-drops 

1 The word irX^pwfxa — ftdness — is used to signify a limited 
fulness as well as an unlimited : it may apply to the contents of 
the brimming cup dipped from the ocean as well as to all the 
waters of the ocean. " When the fulness of time was come, God 
sent forth his Son" (Gal. iv. 4). Here is meant the completion 
of a certain preordained period of time. So "the fulness of the 
Gentiles " we hold to mean the entire number of those to be 
gathered out of the Gentiles during the age. See use of the 
word also in Mark ii. 21. 



52 ECCE VENIT. 



which form the clouds ; but he is the glory of the 
heavens, being their very central and most illus- 
trious orb. And so is Christ a light for revelation 
to the nations, exhibiting God to them in Himself 
who is "the brightness of His glory and the ex- 
press image of His person," in order to win from 
them a chosen heritage. But He will be the su- 
preme glory of His people Israel, when He shall 
at last be owned as their Messiah and reign in 
the midst of them as King. 

These two stages of redemption — the Gentile 
election and the Hebrew restoration — are to be 
accomplished "in order" to a third, namely, 
"that the residue of men might seek after the 
Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name 
is called." 

The old priority still holds, so far as world-wide 
salvation is concerned : "To the Jew first and also 
to the Gentile." This order was inverted for a 
time by the rejection of Christ by His people ; 
but when they shall turn unto Him and find 
mercy, it will be taken up again. It stands writ- 
ten in Scripture that " all Israel shall be saved ; " 
and just as plainly, that through that consum- 
mation " all the Gentiles upon whom my name is 
called." Without enlarging upon the thought, 
what a profound hint of this does Paul give in the 
words of the same chapter concerning his rejected 



THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 53 

people : " Now if the fall of them be the riches 
of the world, and the diminishing of them the 
riches of the Gentiles, how much more tlieir ful- 
ness." " For if the casting away of them be the 
reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving 
of them be but life from the dead?" (Rom. xi. 12, 
15.) "It is clear," says Lange, "that the apostle 
awaits a boundless effect of blessing on the world 
from the future conversion of Israel." Then 
shall the word of Joel concerning the effusion of 
the Spirit have a complete fulfilment, as it had a 
partial and prefigurative accomplishment on the 
day of Pentecost. For if we turn to the prophet 
we find it said : " And ye shall know that / am in 
the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your 
God and none else. And it shall come to pass 
afterward that I will pour out my Spirit u,pon all 
flesh " (Joel ii. 27, 28). And with this agree the 
words of Isaiah where he predicts the desolation 
of Zion as continuing " till the Spirit be poured 
iLpon 7 is from on high" (Is. xxxii. 15). When the 
Lord shall shed forth the Holy Ghost abundantly 
upon His covenant people, through them will come 
unspeakable blessing to the Gentiles. 1 The mod- 

1 " A new life in the higher charismatic fulness of the Spirit 
shall extend from God's people to the nations of the world com- 
pared with which the previous life of the nations must be con- 
sidered dead." — Auberlen. 



v 



54 ECCE VENIT. 



ern post-millennial interpretation completely de- 
ranges the programme of prophecy at this point 
by making redemption terminate with its first 
scene. " The end of the age," brought in by the 
second coming of Christ, misleadingly translated 
"the end of the world" in our common version, 
is supposed by many to close the probation of the 
race, winding up the present earthly scene, and 
bringing in the final judgment and the eternal 
state, instead of opening into the triumphs of the 
age to come. Is it possible that the first Chris- 
tians could have had this idea ? If so, how could 
they have so ardently desired, and earnestly 
looked for, the speedy return of the Lord, since 
His coming would end the work of Gentile in- 
gathering, while as yet only a handful had been 
saved ? On the contrary, take the words of Peter 
to the Jewish rejectors of Christ, and observe how 
clearly they teach the very opposite : " Repent ye 
therefore and turn again, that your sins may be 
blotted out, that so there may come seasons of 
refreshing from the presence of the Lord ; and 
that he may send the Christ who hath been ap- 
pointed for you, even Jesus whom the heaven 
must receive until the times of the restoration of 
all things " (Acts hi. 19-21, r. v.). Here we have, 
as constantly throughout Scripture, the repent- 
ance of Israel directly connected with the return 



THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 55 

of Christ from heaven, and their conversion and 
the Lord's appearing resulting, not in their cut- 
ting off from the presence of the Lord, but in 
times of " refreshing from the presence of the 
Lord ; " not in the winding up of all things, but 
in the " restoration of all things" Three acts of 
the divine programme appear again in this decla- 
ration of Peter, — the coming of Christ, the con- 
version of Israel, and universal redemption, — 
corresponding exactly with those revealed in the 
texts from James and Paul already considered. 

How clearly it is thus seen that the final re- 
demption of the world comes at last through the 
conversion and restoration of Israel, and the 
glorifying of the Church at our Lord's return ! 
If it be said that this is a Jewish conception, bor- 
rowed from the Old Testament, 1 we will answer, 
"Yes, and reiterated and more explicitly un- 
folded in the New Testament." For nowhere is 
the order of events so distinctly revealed as in 
the Acts and Epistles. 

" Election, partial and opposed to universal 

1 " It is certainly not without significance that the Old Testa- 
ment throughout binds the fulfilment of the Divine kingdom to 
the land that was granted to Abraham, not by right of nature, 
but by grace. The prophets know of no final completion of the 
Divine promises without the confirmation of this old promise of 
the eternal possession of the Holy Land." — Oehler, Old Testa- 
ment Theology, \. p. 93. 



56 ECCE VENIT. 



redemption," has been the verdict of thousands 
who have replied against God, knowing little of 
the range of His eternal plan. " Election, gra- 
cious, and preparatory to universal redemption/' 
is the discovery which a deep pondering of Holy 
Scripture reveals. The chosen nation, Israel, 
restored and made glorious on earth, with the 
Lord dwelling in the midst of her, and the elect 
Church transfigured with her risen Saviour, — these 
are His appointed agents, trained by long dis- 
cipline and trial for bringing all peoples and 
tribes into obedience to God. As to the Gentile 
election, so to the Hebrew restoration, objectors 
may be reconciled when it appears that this, too, 
is instrumental and preparatory to world-wide 
salvation. "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, 
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee," 
is the summons which the long captive daughter 
of Zion shall hear, and then the blessed result : 
"And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and 
kings to the brightness of thy rising " (Is. lx. 
3). No dream of the world's conversion, how- 
ever ardent, can surpass the glowing reality as 
depicted in the prophecy just quoted, — " The 
abundance of the sea," " The forces of the Gen- 
tiles," " The inhabitants of the isles," coming no 
longer by ones and twos, but in clouds ! Only let 
us observe the order of their coming, — through 



THE PROGRAMME OF REDEMPTION. 57 

restored and forgiven Israel, — that we may un- 
derstand the Messianic prayers which are taught 
us in the Scripture to be the truest missionary 
prayers. To plead for the speedy return of the 
Lord is to plead for the speedy ingathering of the 
heathen ; to pray for the peace of Jerusalem is to 
pray for the conversion of the Gentiles. How 
this comes out in the words of the sixty-seventh 
Psalm ! — " God be merciful unto us and bless us, 
and cause His face to shine upon us; that Thy 
way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health 
among all nations." The Jews have been in the 
shadow of God's averted countenance ever since 
they rejected His Anointed, and hid, as it were, 
their faces from Him. But when they shall re- 
pent and return to Him, He will turn His face 
again upon them in blessing. Then will redemp- 
tion go forth unhindered and without measure 
upon the Gentiles. 1 " Then shall the earth yield 
her increase, and God, even our own God, shall 

1 " Those beautiful questioning words of Isaiah about the 
Gentiles often occur to me : ' Who are these who fly as doves to 
their windows ? ' — a flock of doves speeding to their home, their 
ark of refuge. Noah's one dove, like the solitary Jewish Church, 
took refuge there from the wild waste of waters ; but all kin- 
dreds, people, tongues, and nations shall fly to their stronghold in 
later times, their feathers of gold and their wings covered with 
silver, white and lovely though they have lain among the pots." 
— Patience of Hope. 



58 ECCE VENIT. 



bless us, and all tJie ends of the eartJi shall fear 
Him" Blessed time, when God's patient seek- 
ing after the Gentiles shall give place to a uni- 
versal seeking of the Gentiles after God. " And 
the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, 
saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the 
Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts. I will go 
also, yea, many people and strong nations shall 
come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, 
and to pray before the Lord" (Zech. viii. 21, 22). 
To those, therefore, who would dishearten us by 
declaring that missions to the heathen are a fail- 
ure, and that, at the end of nineteen centuries of 
evangelization by the Church, there are a thou- 
sand million of earth's fourteen hundred millions 
who have not even named the name of Christ, 
— that " for every additional Christian, we have 
every year a hundred and eighty additional 
heathens or Moslems," — our answer is, An ex- 
hortation to redoubled diligence in preaching the 
gospel to every creature, that we may thereby 
" hasten the day of God ; " an invocation, " Even 
so come Lord Jesus ; " and a prayer which we 
breathe out in the most fitting words of the old 
English burial service : " That it may please Thee 
shortly to accomplish the number of TJiine elect and 
to hasten Thy kmgdom, that we, with all those 



\ 



THE PROGRAMME OE REDEMPTION. 59 

that are departed in the true faith of Thy holy 
name, may have our perfect consummation and 
bliss, both in body and soul, in Thy eternal and 
everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen." 



V. 

THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 

Three consecutive ends of ages come into 
view in the New Testament : First (Heb. ix. 26), 
" Once in the end of the ages hath he appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," Christ's 
first coming, terminating the Jewish economy in 
the judgment and rejection of the house of Israel, 
and opening the door of grace to the Gentiles; 
second (Matt. xiii. 49), "At the end of the age the 
angels shall come forth and sever the wicked 
from among the just," Christ's second coming, 
attended by the first resurrection and the rap- 
ture of the Church, terminating the dispensation 
of grace in the judgment of apostate Christen- 
dom, restoring Israel, and introducing the mil- 
lennium ; third (1 Cor. xv. 24, r. v.), " Then cotneth 
the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom 
to God even the Father," the close of the millen- 
nium, the resurrection of the rest of the dead, 
and the last judgment. 

Observe with what dramatic solemnity each of 
these successive ages is brought to a close. On 
the cross of Golgotha, amid the rending of the 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 6 1 

temple veil, the shock of earthquake, and the 
darkening of the sun, Christ ended the first with 
that mighty cry: "It is finished" (John xix. 30). 
Amid voices, and thunders and lightnings, and 
an earthquake, and the outpouring of the sev- 
enth vial, the present age is closed, a great voice 
out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, 
saying: "It is done" (Rev. xvi. 17). With the 
passing away of the first heaven and the first 
earth, and the abolishing of death and sorrow and 
crying and pain, the millennial age is brought to 
an end, He that sitteth on the throne saying : 
" It is done, I am Alpha and Omega, the begin- 
ning and the end " (Rev. xxi. 6). 

What is called the post-millennial theory — 
the doctrine that Christ's return is at the end 
of the millennium instead of the beginning — 
maintains its position by telescoping the ages, 
running the second and third together, and so 
making their principal events to synchronize. It 
is agreed that a resurrection takes place at the 
advent of Christ. But pre-millennialists hold that 
this is "the first resurrection," — the rising of 
the just, — and that a chiliad will elapse between 
it and the second resurrection, during which 
period Christ will reign over the earth with His 
glorified Church, and that therefore His coming 
must be pre-millennial. This might not appear 



62 ECCE VENIT. 



to one whose eye is not trained by a diligent study 
of the Word to apprehend the perspective of 
prophecy. But will our readers follow us care- 
fully, and see whether the position is not justi- 
tified by an appeal to Scripture. 

The following text we regard as having to do 
with three consecutive ages (i Cor. xv. 22-29 ) : 
" In Christ shall all be made alive. But every 
man in his own order : CJirist the first-fruits," — 
at the close of the Jewish dispensation, — " after- 
ward they that are Christ s at His coming" — at 
the close of the present dispensation, — " then 
cometh the end" — at the close of the millennial 
dispensation. This last "end," however, is held 
by post-millenarians to mean the time of Christ's 
coming and the resurrection of all, both righteous 
and wicked ; so that there is no considerable 
period between the advent and the final consum- 
mation. 

But observe the significant adverbs " after- 
wards " and " then" — €7retra ; eha} They are cor- 
relatives ; and as we know that one describes an 
era of at least nearly nineteen hundred years, it 

1 " By the words eireira and eira, two separate epochs are dis- 
tinctly marked ; and it is a violation of all usage of terms to 
construe them otherwise. The interval of the first is stretching 
beyond 1,800 years ; how many ages will intervene between the 
second and the third, who can tell ? " — Kline. 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 63 

is quite impossible to suppose that the other indi- 
cates no considerable period of time. And this 
is not all. Scripture is like a dissected map, 
whose scattered parts we must fit together if we 
would discover what is the divine pattern of the 
ages. And, turning to the Apocalypse, we find 
that it gives us the period and the events with 
which to fill up this disputed space between the 
resurrection of them that are Christ's at His com- 
ing and the end. For in its pages we have a 
vision of " the first resurrection " — that which all 
Scripture teaches us to connect with Christ's 
second advent — and then the statement that "the 
rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand 
years were ended ; " and between these two, the 
glorified saints reigning with Christ a thousand 
years (Rev. xx. 4-6). If plain language may be 
plainly interpreted, this gives us the filling up of 
the outline revealed in Corinthians, and verifies 
the schedule of the ages with which we begin this 
chapter. 

Moreover, if we observe the events which are 
connected with the " end " in the Corinthian 
prophecy, we see how clearly they define it. 
" Then cometh the end when He shall deliver up 
the kingdom to God, even the Father" (1 Cor. xv. 
24, r. v.). But on Christ's appearing at the close 
of the present age, He takes the kingdom from 



64 ECCE VENIT. 



the Father. As Daniel sees One like unto the 
Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, he 
beholds Him invested with kingship by the " An- 
cient of Days : " "And there was given Him do- 
minion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples 
and nations and languages should serve Him " 
(Dan. vii. 13, 14). Can our Lord's receiving the 
kingdom from the Father mean the same thing 
as His delivering up the kingdom to the Father ? 1 
In Revelation the representation is precisely the 
same. As the seventh angel sounds — the angel 
of the last trump under which the righteous dead 
are raised (1 Cor. xv. 52) — there are great voices 
in heaven saying : " The kingdom of this world 
is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His 
Christ ; " and the response from the four and 
twenty elders is : " We give thee thanks, O Lord 
God Almighty, which art and wast and art to 
come," — this is the title of the glorified Christ 
(i. 8), — " because Thou hast taken to Thyself 

1 " Is the object of Christ's coming to surrender the kingdom 
to the Father, or does He come first of all to rightly enter upon 
it ? Undoubtedly the latter. The appearing of Christ is at the 
same time the appearing of His Kingdom. This unquestioned, 
then it is clear that the return of Christ is rather for the purpose 
of assuming than assigning the kingdom, and therefore the pa- 
rousia of Christ and the End of the World do not coincide, but 
on the contrary are separated from each other." — Luthardt, 
Lehre von den Letzten Diugen, p. 129, 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 65 

Thy great power and hast reigned." This cer- 
tainly is Christ's assumption of the kingdom 
rather than His surrender of it. Not only does 
He receive the kingdom at His advent, but, ac- 
cording to this same prophecy of Daniel, His 
redeemed people share its reign and judgment 
with Him : " And the time came that the saints 
possessed the kingdom " (Daniel vii. 22). But this 
time is shown in Revelation to extend from the 
first resurrection to the second resurrection : 
" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first 
resurrection : on such the second death hath no 
power ; but they shall be priests of God and of 
Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand 
years" (Rev. xx. 6). Observe, again, that the last 
end which we are considering is "the end . . . 
when He shall have put down all rule and author- 
ity and power" Does He not begin this work at 
His advent, when He destroys Antichrist, and all 
his vast array of allied wickedness, by the bright- 
ness of His coming ? " For He must reign till He 
hath put all enemies under His feet." But at His 
coming for the first resurrection, He finds His 
enemies unsubdued, the nations angry, the apos- 
tasy ripe for judgment. This cannot be the time 
of the completed subjection of His foes. " The 
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" Yet 
it is only at the end of the millennium, at the 



66 ECCE VENIT. 



termination of the thousand years' reign of the 
saints, and after the white-throne judgment, that 
the announcements are heard: " And death and 
hell were cast into the lake of fire ; " "And there 
shall be no more death " (Rev. xx. 14 ; xxi. 4). 
We find, therefore, an entire era of the conquest 
and reign of Immanuel and His saints between 
the resurrection at His glorious appearing and 
the end when He shall surrender His kingdom. 
These considerations would seem to establish 
conclusively the pre-millennial order of Christ's 
coming ; but there are others. 

The present age is everywhere set forth in 
Scripture as one of mingled darkness and light, 
towards the end of which the shadows rather 
deepen into judgment than break away before a 
triumphant millennial dawn. The parables of the 
kingdom, contained in the thirteenth chapter of 
Matthew, are decisive in their teaching. These 
parables are seven ; and we hold that — like the 
seven prophetic pictures of the Apocalyptic 
churches — they portray the successive eras of 
the history of Christendom from the beginning of 
the dispensation to its close. 1 In them we have 

1 The Epistles to the Seven Churches, besides describing what 
is undoubtedly historical, have so many allusions which are evi- 
dently figurative and mystical that there is the strongest reason 
for accepting the view advanced by Mede, one of the earliest 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 67 

a vivid delineation of the trials and resistance 
which the kingdom of heaven was to encounter 
from the Adversary, from its first introduction 
into the world until the end of the age ; and if, 
in their exposition, we are guided by the light 
which other Scriptures throw upon them, we seem 
to discover both a logical and a chronological 
order in the teaching which they set forth. 

In the first parable, the seed is " the word of 
the kingdom." As it is sown, three parts fall 
into unfruitful soil, and only one part into good 
ground. Does not this harmonize with the uni- 
versal experience of the preachers of the Gospel, 
from the day of our Lord's ministry until this 
present, that only the smaller fraction of their 
hearers give fruitful heed to the Word ? 

In the second parable, we take the field that is 
really receptive, and into which good seed has 
been cast, and, lo ! tares are found to have been 
sown therein by the Adversary, which now appear 
growing together with the wheat. This our Lord 
explains to mean the mingling of "the children 
of the Wicked One" with "the children of the 



Protestant Apocalyptic commentators, and received by many 
later expositors, that it was intended "that these seven churches 
should prophetically sample unto us a sevenfold temper and 
constitution of the whole Church according to the several ages 
thereof, answering the pattern of the churches named here." 



68 ECCE VENIT. 



kingdom." And is not this exactly what came to 
pass in the first stages of the apostasy, the bring- 
ing of unregenerated men into the Church of 
Christ and mixing them with true saints ? With 
this second parable of the kingdom harmonizes 
most strikingly the second stage of prophetic 
Christian history as exhibited in the Church of 
Smyrna (Rev. ii. 9), — "I know the blasphemy of 
them that say they are Jews and are not, but are 
of the synagogue of Satan ; " false professors per- 
sonating the true, the children of the Wicked One 
palming themselves off as children of the king- 
dom (see Rom. ii. 28). 

The third parable shows the result. The king- 
dom of heaven becomes a lofty and overshadow- 
ing world -church. 1 The mustard -seed springs 
up, but not according to its kind ; from an herb 
it grows into a great tree, and the birds of the 
air that once sought to destroy the seed of the 
kingdom now lodge in its branches ; the em- 
perors and kings who had striven to uproot the 
pure Church find shelter in this secular Church, 
which, in its changed condition, overspreads the 
earth with marvellous rapidity. Let one read 
this parable in the light of the same represen- 

1 "As the mustard-seed even changes its species, passing 
from an herb to a sort of tree, so does the kingdom of heaven pass 
into the likeness of a great world-stated — Lange. 



THE EAES OE THE AGES. 69 

tation as given by the prophets (Ezk. xxxi. 3- 
14, and Dan. iv. 10-19), and he can hardly con- 
clude that our Lord intended herein to set forth 
a true spiritual growth of His Church. It is 
rather the Pergamos period of her development 
which the prophetico-historic interpreters have 
understood to be the era of the union of Church 
and State, wherein what was originally "not of 
this world " becomes a vast world-kingdom. The 
prophetic prefigurement in the Apocalypse is 
very striking, — Balaam conspiring with Balak, 
the prophet with the king, to seduce the children 
of Israel into idolatry (Rev. ii. 14), — even as, in 
the history of the Church, the bishops and the 
emperors by their ecclesiastical alliance pagan- 
ized Christianity. 

The fourth parable gives the result of this rank 
prosperity of the Church in the complete corrup- 
tion of her life and doctrine: "The kingdom of 
heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took 
and hid in three measures of meal till the whole 
was leavened." Let those who affirm that this 
parable signifies the gradual penetration and sav- 
ing transformation of the whole world by the 
Gospel reflect that, in order to get this interpre- 
tation, they must give to leaven a directly oppo- 
site meaning from that which Scripture invariably 
assigns to it, since it is always employed in the 



70 ECCE VENIT. 



< 



Bible as a type of corruption, there being abso- 
lutely no exception to this usage in Old Testa- 
ment or New. 1 Hear our Lord's admonition to 
" take Jiccd and beware of the leaven of the Phari- 
sees and of the Sadducees" meaning thereby their 
false doctrines (Matt. xvi. 12). Listen to the 
exhortations of the apostle against " the leaven of 
malice and wickedness" (1 Cor. v. 8). Warning 
the Galatians of the doctrine of the Judaizers, he 
bids them remember that "a little leaven leaven- 
etJi the whole lump " (Gal. v. 9). Reproving the 
Corinthian Church for harboring fornicators, he 
uses the same phrase, and adds: "Purge out, 
therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new 
lump, as ye are " — according to your calling and 
profession — "unleavened" (1 Cor. v. 7). Com- 
paring Scripture with Scripture, — the only 
method of interpreting difficult texts, — it seems 
clear that this parable of the leaven symbolizes 
the apostate Church, ''which did corrupt the earth 
with her fornication" (Rev. xix. 2), and not the 
true Christianitv, which was to transform the 
whole earth by the Gospel. The only instance 
where the use of leaven was commanded in 

1 Even the heathen attached this significance to it, as shown 
by the following sentence of Plutarch, as cited by "Wetstein : 
" Xow leaven is both generated itself from corruption, and it cor- 
rupts the mass "with which it is mingled." 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 71 

Jewish worship affords a striking confirmation 
of this interpretation. Rigidly and repeatedly 
was its employment forbidden in the Passover 
service, because that service was foretypical of 
Christ, who should be without spot or blemish. 
But the wave-loaves of the feast of Pentecost 
were commanded to be "taken with leaven" 
(Lev. xxiii. 17) ; and Pentecost is believed to 
have been foretypical of the Church, as the Pass- 
over was of Christ ; and its corruption by the 
leaven of false doctrine was thus possibly fore- 
shadowed even in a Jewish rite and ceremony. 

But could the kingdom of heaven be compared 
with an evil or corrupt thing ? Not in its prim- 
itive and original condition certainly. But in its 
deteriorated state it might. "Then shall the king- 
dom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins : . . . 
five of them were wise said Jive were foolish" 
(Matt. xxv. 1, 2). Here the kingdom of heaven, 
as it will be immediately previous to the coming 
of Christ, is compared with what is semi-apostate, 
according to the invariable representation of the 
mixed condition prevailing at that period. If, as 
we believe, the parable of the leaven belongs to 
the Middle Ages, when the Church was com- 
pletely apostate, it is clearly reasonable that the 
kingdom should then be compared with leaven, 
which is the synonym of corruption. And can 



72 ECCE VENIT. 



we fail to be struck with the exact correspond- 
ence between the fourth parable of the seven in 
Matthew and the fourth prophecy of the seven 
in the Apocalypse ? As in the one a woman is 
seen hiding leaven in the meal, so in the other 
is pictured "that woman Jezebel teaching and 
seducing Christ's servants to commit fornication, 
and to eat things sacrificed to idols " (Rev. ii. 20) ; 
that is, the papacy disseminating false doctrine in 
the Church, and adulterating its worship with 
pagan rites and ceremonies. 

Such we believe to be the interpretation of 
this much-disputed parable which Scripture com- 
pels, and we may add also, which history con- 
firms. 1 For if one holds that here is a similitude 
of the transformation of the whole world by the 
Gospel, he can show no fulfilment in fact ; since, 
after nearly twenty centuries, the vastly larger 
part of the world is still pagan, unchristian or 
antichristian. If the parable signifies the cor- 
ruption of the whole prophetic earth by the 
leaven of paganized Christianity, history gives a 



1 Some, who cannot admit that the parable of the leaven 
refers to the corruption of the Church, concede that it may bear 
this as a secondary meaning. Richter's House Bible says : 
" The mixed degeneracy and sinfulness of the no longer apostoli- 
cally pure Church which now extends itself is at the same time 
meant" 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 73 

perfect confirmation of it ; since, just before the 
clawn of the Reformation, it was proudly boasted 
by the Roman hierarchy that all opposition had 
at last been silenced, and the entire Christian 
world brought into acquiescence with the Apos- 
tate Church. 

Having uttered these four parables in the pres- 
ence of the multitude, our Lord makes a signifi- 
cant break in His discourse and sends them away; 
then, entering into the house, He speaks the re- 
maining three to His disciples. What do these 
last signify ? An eminent commentator, Dr. 
Schaff, following a totally different exposition of 
the earlier parables from that we have indicated, 
when reaching the parable of the hid treasure 
remarks on the striking historical likeness which 
is presented to it in what occurred at the Refor- 
mation. We consider that this may be the in- 
tended prophetic reference. It is God's elect 
people who are repeatedly called in Scripture His 
" peculiar treasure " (Ex. xix. 5 ; Ps. cxxv. 4, etc.). 
In " the field " where the kingdom of heaven has 
been so resisted and thwarted by the Adversary 
this treasure now lies hid out of sight. "The 
kingdom of God is as it were buried beneath the 
clods of false Christianity, — of superstition, hu- 
man ordinances and ceremonies " (Roos). Is not 
this the Sardis period of the Church, nominal 



74 ECCE VENIT. 



Christianity alone visible ? " I know thy works, 
that thou hast a name that livest and art dead." 
But there is a hidden remnant: 1 " A few names 
even in Sardis that have not defiled their gar- 
ments." At what cost of martyr-blood and of the 
selling of all — property, friends, and life — was 
this hidden treasure recovered, and what bound- 
less joy resulted ! So likewise of the sixth par- 
able, that of the pearl. The sixth Church of the 
Apocalypse, Philadelphia, which has been held to 
be the Church of the Reformation, has this as its 
distinctive honor: " Thou hast kept my Word" 
By the hand of such as Wiclif, and Luther, and 
Tyndal, who heard the command of God, " Buy 
the truth and sell it not," the priceless pearl of 
the Holy Scriptures, or, forsooth, that pearl of 
pearls, the doctrine of justification by faith, — 
long hidden from the people under the rubbish of 
the apostasy, — was again brought to light and 
held forth, at what countless cost of life and 
substance, but also amid what exultant rejoicing! 

1 " The kingdom of heaven is represented as having once 
more become invisible in the visible Church ; as hid like a treas- 
ure, erst concealed in a most unlikely place, in the midst of 
worldly things. It appears as a treasure-trove — a free gift of 
grace — discovered by a person in a fortunate hour while he 
was engaged in digging : true Christianity, when again dis- 
covered, a subject of great joy." — Lange on The Parable of the 
Hid Treasure. 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 75 

The seventh parable is most striking in its fore- 
casting of the times in which we live : " Again 
the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was 
cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind " — ■ 
iK 7ravT05 yevovs — "out of every race!' Here is the 
draw-net of world-wide missions ; and the fact 
that our Lord interprets the parable as applying 
to the close of the dispensation shows how per- 
fectly its teaching accords with His own prophecy 
that towards the end the Gospel of the kingdom 
should be preached among all nations. It will be 
seen thus that as the first parable, in which the 
Son of man is the sower, touches our Lord's first 
advent, so the seventh touches His second ad- 
vent. And it is certainly natural to conclude — 
since seven is in Scripture the number of com- 
pleteness — that the others span the entire in- 
terim. The result of this net-casting is, accord- 
ing to the invariable teaching of Scripture, a 
mixed gathering, in which righteous and unright- 
eous are found together at last, awaiting the sepa- 
ration of judgment. Is there any likeness here 
to the seventh or Laodicean picture of the Church, 
" Because thou art lukewarm " i If we may credit 
the quaint suggestion of an expositor that " luke- 
warmness is the result of the mingling of ex- 
tremes of cold and heat in the same vessel," 
there is. At all events, this picture agrees with 



76 ECCE VENIT. 



the combined teaching of the Scriptures concern- 
ing the close of the dispensation. It will be an 
age of mingled zeal and formalism ; evangelical 
fervor carrying the servants of Christ to the ends 
of the earth proclaiming the everlasting Gospel, 
and abounding iniquity causing the love of many 
to wax cold. The last period, however, does not 
seem to be the period of the widest and com- 
pletest apostasy of the Church, as some would 
teach. That era is the middle era, when the 
whole lump was leavened ; subsequently to this, 
there is a partial and glorious recovery. This is 
for our joy, amid all in the outlook which is for 
our admonition. The sailors on the Southern 
Sea sing, "Midnight is past, the cross begins to 
bend." And we, as voyagers through these trou- 
bled ages, in which are the sea and the waves 
roaring, and men's hearts failing them for fear, 
may sing, "Midnight is past." Let not those 
who are looking for the millennium instead of 
Christ paint a future for the Church of untinged 
brightness ; let not those who are looking for 
Antichrist instead of Christ picture a future for 
the Church of unmitigated blackness : for neither 
representation is true to prophecy. " Watchman, 
what of the night ? The Watchman said, " The 
morning; comet Jl and also the night." 

Trace through whatever line we will, we find 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 77 

the same condition at the end of the dispensation. 
If from the seed-time of the world we look on to 
the reaping-time, we find the wheat and the tares, 
the children of the kingdom and the children of 
the Wicked One, growing together until the har- 
vest ; then separated each for his destiny : " So 
shall it be at the end of the age " (Matt. xiii. 40). 

If we watch with joy the ingatherings of the 
Gospel net as it sweeps through the nations, we 
find that, when it is full and drawn to the shore, 
the good are gathered into vessels, but the bad 
are cast away: "So shall it be at the end of the 
age " (Matt. xiii. 49). 

If we listen to our Lord's great eschatological 
discourse, we hear prediction after prediction of 
wars, and famines, and pestilences, persecutions, 
and apostasies, and false christs, together with a 
world-wide preaching of the Gospel for a witness ; 
but instead of any gleam of millennial glory in 
the solemn prophecy, we find it culminating in 
such a time "as it was in the days of Noah." 
And all this is our Saviour's answer to the ques- 
tion, "What shall be the sign of Thy coming and 
of the end of the age ? " (Matt. xxiv. 3.) 

If we question the Scriptures concerning the 
characteristics of the last time as set forth by the 
apostles, we are told that these shall be "perilous 
times" (2 Tim. iii. 1), — times in which "some 



78 ECCE VENIT. 



shall depart from the faith, giving heed to sedu- 
cing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies 
in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with 
a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding 
to abstain from meats" (i Tim. iv. 1-3); that 
whereas in primitive days Christians lived in 
sober expectation of the Lord's return, " there 
shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after 
their own lusts, and saying, Where is the sign 
of His coming?" (2 Pet. hi. 3, 4.) 

If we inquire concerning the dispensation as 
a whole, we learn that the purpose of our Re- 
deemer's work was, not that He might transform 
this into a present golden age, but "that He 
might deliver us from this present evil age" (Gal. 
i. 4) ; not that He might conform this age to us, 
but that we should " be not conformed to this age " 
(Rom. xii. 2). Such statements suggestively in- 
dicate that it is not the divine purpose to millen- 
nialize the present dispensation, but rather to call 
out from it a holy Church, a separated people. 

For what, moreover, are the age-long character- 
istics as revealed in Scripture ? Paul, in teaching 
the Thessalonians concerning the second coming 
of Christ, admonishes them that, before that day 
could arrive, there must first come a falling away 
and a revelation of the man of sin. And he tells 
them that this apostasy had even then begun, — 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 79 

"the mystery of iniquity doth already work," — 
and that out of it "that Wicked" would be re- 
vealed, "whom the Lord shall consume with the 
spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the 
brightness of His coming." Here is a demon- 
stration from Scripture that the predicted apos- 
tasy would stretch across the entire age from the 
days of Christ's immediate apostles to the day of 
His second advent, when in its consummated 
development it would confront the descending 
Judge and meet its doom. Is it, then, a ripe mil- 
lennium that welcomes the returning Lord at His 
epiphany, or a ripe apostasy ? Let him that read- 
eth understand. 

Again, since God's ancient people Israel are 
everywhere represented in Scripture as having 
a blessed share in the triumphs and joys of the 
millennial glory, let us ask what their condition 
is to be in this dispensation. In our Lord's great 
prophecy concerning His second coming and the 
end of the age, He answers this question con- 
clusively. He describes in graphic outlines the 
destruction of Jerusalem, with the events preced- 
ing and portending it. After using language that 
can only apply to that appalling event, — " Pray 
ye that your flight be not in the winter," — He 
adds, " For there shall be great tribulation, such as 
was not since the beginning of the world to this 



80 ECCE VENIT. 



time, — no, nor ever shall be" (Matt. xxiv. 20, 21). 
How long shall this tribulation continue ? Until 
Christ's second coming. For our Lord declares 
that " immediately after the tribulation of those 
days" the signs of the advent shall be witnessed, 
when " they shall see the Son of man coming in 
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory " 
(xxiv. 30). So closely are these two events con- 
nected in the prediction that some have argued 
that Christ's advent must have actually occurred 
at the destruction of Jerusalem, in a spiritual or 
providential sense. But a careful examination of 
the language employed proves beyond question 
that it is a literal coming that is here described, 
and that a literal immediateness after the great 
tribulation is affirmed by the word eu0e'u>9, " imme- 
diately." If we turn to Luke's Gospel, however, 
and read his parallel report of our Lord's words, 
all becomes plain (Luke xxi. 23-27). For he 
makes the tribulation to include the dispersion 
of the Jews among all nations, and the treading 
down of their Holy City by the Gentiles, " until 
the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." In other 
words, the great tribulation covers the entire age 
from Zion's captivity to Messiah's coming. To 
say that the millennium is to precede Christ's 
advent, therefore, is to affirm the possibility of 
putting that era of unparalleled blessing into the 



THE ENDS OF THE AGES. 



same period which is occupied by this unequalled 
tribulation ; in other words, it is to identify and 
synchronize the golden age of Israel's triumph 
with the gloomy age of Israel's trouble. This 
cannot be. For we see in prophecy that the 
great apostasy and the great tribulation so far pre- 
empt the present dispensation, that the Church's 
millennium and Israel's millennium are alike 
crowded out, and there is found no place for them, 
till the Lord descends in glory to destroy Anti- 
christ and restore Israel. 



PART II. 
FORFEITED. 



" Our looking at Chrisfs coming as at a distance is the cause of 
all those irregularities which render the thought of it terrible to 
us?" 1 — Matthew Henry. 

" Chiliasm disappeared in proportion as Roman Papal Catholi- 
cism advanced. The Papacy took to itself as a robber, that glory 
which is an object of hope, and can only be reached by the obedience 
and humility of the cross. When the Church became a harlot she 
ceased to be a Bride who goes forth to meet her Bridegroom, and 
thus Chiliasm disappeared." — Auberlen. 

" In plucking up the faith of Chrisfs coming Satan aims directly 
at the throat of the Church. For to what end did Christ die and 
rise again, but t/ial along with Himself he might some day redeem 
us from death, and gather us into eternal life ? " — Calvin. 



I. 

HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 

A man's dwelling in one country, and holding 
citizenship in another and far remote country, is 
not an unknown circumstance. In such a case, 
we may have the singular anomaly of one being 
most a stranger in the land in which he is present, 
and most at home in the land from which he is 
absent. Our blessed Lord was the first perfectly 
to realize this idea respecting the heavenly coun- 
try. For He speaks of Himself as " He that 
came down from heaven, even the Son of man 
who is in heaven." So truly a citizen of the 
other world was He that even while walking with 
men and talking with men He regarded Himself 
. as there, not here. And this saying of His occurs 
in that discourse where, with an emphatic "verily, 
verily," He declares that "except a man be born 
from above he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

Here is the key to the whole mystery. As 
the only begotten of the Father, Christ's native 
country was above ; and during all the days of 
His flesh He neither relinquished His heavenly 
citizenship nor acquired an earthly residence. 



86 ECCE VENIT. 



" Blessed be the Lord God of Israel : for He hath 
'visited and redeemed His people," is a significant 
note in the prophecy of His birth. And four 
times in the Gospels is our Lord's advent to earth 
spoken of as a visit. But it was a visit which 
never for a moment looked toward a permanent 
abiding. At His birth He was laid in a borrowed 
manger, because there was no room for Him in 
the inn ; at His burial He was laid in a borrowed 
tomb, because He owned no foot of earth ; and 
between the cradle and the grave was a sojourn 
in which " the Son of man had not where to lay 
His head." The mountain top whither He con- 
stantly withdrew to commune with His Father 
was the nearest to His home. And hence there 
is a strange, pathetic meaning in that saying, 
"And every man went unto his own house ; Jesus 
went unto the Mount of Olives." 

Now, as it was with the Lord, so it is to be 
with His disciples. "For our citizenship is in 
heaven" says the apostle. Herein is the saying 
of Lady Powerscourt true : " The Christian is 
not one who looks up from earth to heaven, but 
one who looks down from heaven to earth." A 
celestial nativity implies a celestial residence ; 
and with a certain divine condescension may the 
Christian contemplate the sordid, self-seeking 
children of this present evil age and say, with 



HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 87 

his Lord : " Ye are from beneath ; I am from 
above : ye are of this world ; I am not of this 
world." Let us be admonished, however, that 
to say this truly and to live it really may subject 
us to the experience indicated by the apostle : 
" Therefore the world knoweth us not because 
it knew Him not." There is a certain quaint 
beauty in the apology which an old reformer 
made for the hard treatment which he and his 
friends received from the men of this world. 
"Why, brethren," he would say, " they do not 
understand court manners or the etiquette of 
heaven, never having been in that country from 
whence we come ; therefore it is that our ways 
seem strange to them." Would that in the 
Christians of to-day celestial traits were so con- 
spicuous as to occasion like remark ! Perhaps it 
is because there are so few high saints in the 
Church that there are so many low sinners out- 
side the Church, since the ungodly can never be 
powerfully lifted up except by a Church that 
reaches down from an exalted spiritual plane. 

What means that lofty address of the apostle, 
" Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the 
heavenly calling" ? (Heb. hi. 1.) The reference 
is not merely to our final destiny as those who 
are to be called up to heaven, but to our pres- 
ent service as those who have come down from 



88 ECCE VENIT. 



heaven ; sons of God rejoicing in a celestial 
birth, bringing the air and manners of glory 
into a world that knows not God. As such we 
are exhorted to " consider the Apostle and High 
Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus ; " an apos- 
tle being one who comes forth from God, and an 
high priest one who goes in unto God. And 
Christ Jesus not only fulfils both these offices 
in Himself, as he says, " I came forth from the 
Father and am come into the world ; again I 
leave the world and go to the Father," but He 
makes us partakers with Him of the same hea- 
venly calling, sending us into the world, as the 
Father hath sent Him, and permitting us " to 
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," 
as He has entered in by His own blood. 
\r Confessing that our citizenship is in heaven, it 
should be easily determined what our conduct 
and bearing towards the world must be. One 
is expected to pay taxes and make investments 
where he holds residence. Therefore all calls to 
bountiful giving and all demands for rigid self- 
denial are to be esteemed' as reasonable assess- 
ments, not as gratuities. Christianity is no para- 
dox, in which believers are required to do pecu- 
liar things for the sake of being peculiar, and to 
exhibit startling contradictions for the sake of 
arousing the contradiction of sinners against 



HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 89 

themselves. When we are called to lay up trea- 
sures in heaven, it is because that is our country ; 
when we are enjoined not to love the world, nei- 
ther the things that are in the world, it is be- 
cause this is not our country. Two practical er- 
rors spring from an earthly theology, viz., that 
the world is the Christian's home, and the grave 
the Christian's hope. On the contrary, one pos- 
sessed of a clear advent faith would choose for 
himself such an epitaph as that which Dean Al- 
ford composed for his tomb : " The inn of a trav- 
eller on his way to Jerusalem" Ah, yes, that is 
it ! A pilgrim's portion, food and raiment and 
contentment therewith ; the mansion which for- 
tune has provided, or the cabin which penury 
has reared, each alike counted a hospice where 
one lodges as "a pilgrim and stranger in the 
earth;" and the grave a narrow inn whose win- 
dows look towards the sunrising, where the so- 
journer sleeps till break of day, — this, without 
question, is the ideal of the Christian life as out- 
lined in the Gospel. 

An impracticable ideal, it will be said. But it 
was not so in the beginning. To say nothing 
of apostolic Christianity, let us ask what it was 
that gave the Christianity of the first two centu- 
ries such extraordinary vigor in its conflict with 
heathenism. An eminent writer, Gerhard Uhl- 



90 ECCE VENIT. 



horn, has shown with a graphic hand that it was 
just this quality of absolute unworldliness which 
constituted the secret of its power. 1 The men 
who conquered the Roman Empire for Christ 
bore the aspect of invaders from another world, 
who absolutely refused to be naturalized to this 
world. Their conduct filled their heathen neigh- 
bors with the strangest perplexity : they were so 
careless of life, so careful of conscience, so prodi- 
gal of their own blood, so confident of the over- 
coming power of the blood of the Lamb, so un- 
subdued to the customs of the country in which 
they sojourned, so mindful of the manners of 
"that country from whence they came out." 
The help of the world, the patronage of its rul- 
ers, the loan of its resources, the use of its meth- 
ods, they utterly refused, lest by employing these 
they might compromise their King. An invad- 
ing army maintained from an invisible base, and 
placing more confidence in the leadership of an 
unseen Commander than in all imperial help that 
might be proffered, — this was what so bewil- 
dered and angered the heathen, who often de- 
sired to make friends with the Christians with- 
out abandoning their own gods. But there can 
be no reasonable doubt that that a^e in which 
the Church was most completely separated from 

i Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, 



HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 91 

the world was the age in which Christianity was 
most victorious in the world. 1 

It was also the era of undimmed hope of the 
Lord's imminent return from glory, so that it 
illustrated and enforced both clauses of the great 
text : " For our citizenship is in heaven, from 
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord 
Jesus' 1 (Phil. iii. 20). 

Our Lord set forth His departure from the 
world under the parable of "a certain nobleman 
who went into a far country to receive for him- 
self a kingdom, and to return" (Luke xix. 12). 
As a Roman, living in Judea, on appointment to 
the governorship of that province, would go to 
Rome to be invested with office, and then return 
to rule, so Christ has gone to heaven to be in- 
vested with the kingship of the world, and now 
He and His watchful servants are eagerly wait- 
ing for the same thing ; He sitting at God's 

1 These few sentences from a writer of the second century 
give a graphic portrait of the Christians of that period : " They 
inhabit their own country, but as strangers ; they bear their part 
in all things as citizens, and endure all things as aliens. Even- 
foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland a 
foreign country. . . . They live in the flesh, but walk not after 
the flesh. . . . They dwell on earth, but are citizens of heaven. 
They are poor, and make many rich ; they are in want of all 
things, and they have all things in abundance; they are dis- 
honored, and in dishonor glorified." — Epistle to Diognctus V, 



92 ECCE VENIT. 



right hand " expecting till His enemies be made 
His footstool," and they expecting till He shall 
return to reign over the earth. Of the kingdom, 
the King and His kinsmen, the same avowal of 
unearthly origin is made by Christ : " My king- 
dom is not of this world ; " "They are not of the 
world, even as I am 7iot of tJie world" The 
kingdom is the "kingdom of God," the "king- 
dom of heaven ; " its constituency are those who 
are "begotten of God," and "born from above." 
True, this kingdom is now in the world in its 
rudiments and principles, in its citizens and rep- 
resentatives : those who, like their Lord, have 
been sent hither to accomplish the work of gath- 
ering out a people for His name. But, lest we 
fall into fatal error, let us not imagine that we 
are now reigning with Christ on the earth, or 
that the kingdom of God has been set up in the 
world. The Church's earthly career during the 
present age is the exact fac-simile of her Lord's, 
— a career of exile rather than of exaltation ; of 
rejection rather than of rule ; of cross-bearing 
rather than of sceptre - bearing. Grasping at 
earthly sovereignty for the Church while the 
Sovereign himself is still absent has proved, as 
we shall show hereafter, the most fruitful root 
of apostasy. It may be said that this picture 
of the Church, as despised and rejected in the 



HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 93 

world, suffering, outcast, and in exile, does not 
correspond to the facts. Not to the facts of our 
own generation, we admit, wherein the world is 
on such excellent terms with Christians. But 
that it represents the character of the dispensa- 
tion as a whole cannot be questioned, when we 
recall the dark ages and martyr ages of the Chris- 
tian era ; the prisons, and racks, and dungeons, 
and stakes, which stretch on through so large a 
portion of this age. And the pictures of proph- 
ecy are composite pictures, gathering up the main 
features of the entire dispensation and presenting 
them in one. Viewed thus, prediction and his- 
tory perfectly accord. 

"The kingdom is now here in mystery, and 
to be here hereafter in manifestation," one has 
tersely put it. And to this the predicted destiny 
of believers corresponds. " Your life is hid with 
Christ in God ; when Christ, who is our life, 
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him 
in glory " (Col. iii. 4). " Sons of God, tJierefore 
the world knowetJi us not, because it knew Him 
not" (1 John iii. 1). "The earnest expectation 
of the creature waiteth for the ma7iifestation of 
the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 19). "If we suffer, 
we shall reign with Hint " (2 Tim. ii. 12). Ob- 
scurity, rejection, exile, and trial in the world 
now ; manifestation, vindication, enthronement, 



94 ECCE VENIT. 



when the King comes, — this is the foretold call- 
ing of the children of the kingdom. The un- 
precedented exemption of the Church from per- 
secution, and the extraordinary triumphs of the 
Gospel which have characterized this nineteenth 
century, may tend to seduce us into the notion 
that the kingdom has already come, though the 
nobleman who had gone into a far country has 
not yet returned. That we may think truly on 
this subject, let us hear our Lord's voice, say- 
ing : " Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father s 
good pleasure to give you the kingdom " (Luke xii. 
32). In spite of widespread conquests of the 
Gospel the Church is still " a little flock," amid 
the vast populations of Pagans, Mohammedans, 
Infidels, and Apostates. This flock in every age 
has been branded with opprobrium, and torn by 
persecution, and beaten by hireling shepherds, 
and the end is not yet ; for, as good Samuel 
Rutherford says, " So long as any portion of 
Christ's mystical body is out of heaven, Satan 
will strike at it." However favored in our times, 
this flock is not the kingdom ; but it has the 
promise of the kingdom, in which rejection shall 
give place to rule, and crucifixion to coronation. 
When? "And when the Chief Shepherd shall 
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that 
fadeth not away " (1 Pet. v. 4). Whatever tern- 



HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP. 95 

porary respite from persecution we may enjoy, so 
that for the time it may be said as of old, " then 
had the Churches rest," no permanent peace is 
guaranteed until the Lord's return. "And to 
you who are troubled, rest with us when the 
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven " 
(2 Thess. i. 7). 



II. 

THE FALL OF THE CHURCH 

When the Church under Constantine became 
enthroned in the world, she began to be de- 
throned from her seat " in the heavenly places in 
Christ Jesus." For then did she forget her high 
calling, and become enamored of earthly rule and 
dominion. This, let us not forget, was the fatal 
temptation through which the Church lost her 
primitive purity, and brought upon herself all 
manner of dishonor and apostasy. What a ten- 
der prophetic warning of such temptation is con- 
tained in that saying of Paul to the Corinthian 
Christians : " I have espoused you to one hus- 
band that I may present you as a chaste virgin to 
Christ. But I fear lest by any means, as the ser- 
pent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your 
minds should be corrupted from the simplicity 
that is in Christ " (2 Cor. xi. 2). In the world, 
but not of it, the Church, the Bride of Christ, 
was to await the return of her Betrothed Hus- 
band from heaven, that, arrayed in fine linen, 
clean and white, which is the righteousness of 
saints, she might be presented to Him "agio- 



THE FALL OF THE CHURCH 97 

rious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any 
such thing." If, during the time of her espousal, 
Satan could only alienate her affections by get- 
ting her enamored with the kings of the earth, 
so that she should accept their dowries instead of 
her heavenly inheritance, and put on their royal 
purple instead of her virgin white, his triumph 
would be assured. And this is literally what he 
did. 

Observe how the temptation was presented 
first to the Lord Himself by Satan, to seduce 
Him from His love for the Church, that He 
should not redeem her with His own blood. 
"All tJie kingdoms of tJie world and the glory of 
them" was the alluring prize which the Tempter 
set before our Bridegroom. "All these things 
will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and woi'- 
ship me " (Matt. iv. 9), was the alluring promise 
held out to Him. Have we understood the deep 
reality and significance of this temptation in the 
wilderness ? 

Precisely what Satan, "the Prince of this 
world," proffered — all the kingdoms of the 
earth — had long ago been pledged to Christ by 
the Father. But before this inheritance could 
be realized, He must be despised and rejected of 
men, crucified and buried, and then raised up to 
wait an unknown time upon His Father's throne 



98 ECCE VENIT. 



"till His enemies be made His footstool." The 
Tempter would say, " Why not take the kingdoms 
of the world at once, foregoing the humiliation 
and the cross and the long rejection by the 
world?" But the Saviour's resistance of the 
temptation was prompt and final : " Get thee be- 
hind Me, Satan." And when, afterwards, Simon 
Peter, preoccupied no doubt with the idea of an 
immediate temporal kingdom for his Lord, re- 
pelled Christ's announcement of His approach- 
ing crucifixion, saying, " Far be it from Thee, 
Lord ; this shall not be unto thee," Jesus recog- 
nized it as the old wilderness temptation reap- 
pearing, and met it with the same rebuke : " Get 
thee behind Me, Satan " (Matt. xvi. 23). Thus the 
Son of God, true to His Father's commission and 
to His plighted affection for His Bride, whom 
He must purchase with His own blood, stood 
firm against this great temptation, accepting a 
present cross and rejection, instead of a present 
crown and dominion ; choosing to be cast out by 
a world that knew Him not, until after "the 
times or seasons which the Father hath put in 
His own power" should be fulfilled, and the 
announcement be made, "The kingdoms of this 
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and 
ever." 



THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 99 

The second Adam had thus steadfastly resisted 
the solicitations of the old serpent. Would the 
second Eve, His Bride, do likewise ? For more 
than two hundred years the Church did remain 
true to her heavenly citizenship, counting herself 
a stranger in the earth and looking for her Lord 
from Heaven. Her uplifted gaze and unworldly 
attitude were such conspicuous features of the 
early Church that even unbelieving historians 
like Gibbon have noted them, and dwelt upon 
them with a kind of suppressed admiration, that 
author conceding that, while the hope of Christ's 
imminent return remained universal, " it was pro- 
ductive of the most salutary effects on the faith 
and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful 
expectation of that moment when the globe itself 
and all the various races of mankind should trem- 
ble at the appearance of their divine Judge." 
The bloody persecutions which reigned from 
Nero to Diocletian only confirmed this hope, — 
earthly disenfranchisement making heavenly citi- 
zenship more real and dear. 

But now the perilous trial of peace was to be 
encountered. Will the Church endure the test 
of imperial patronage as she has borne the test 
of imperial persecution ? O Bride of Immanuel, 
made "dead to the law by the body of Christ 
that ye should be married to another, even to Him 



ECCE VEXIT. 



who was raised from the dead" (Rom. vii. 4), 
alas for the day when thou didst receive the kings 
of the earth for thy lovers, and, forgetful of thy 
Lord's promise, " I appoint unto you a kingdom 
as My Father hath appointed unto Me," didst 
accept a throne from the princes of this world ! 
Earth's sovereignty had long since been pledged 
to the Church as well as to Christ : " And the 
kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the 
kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given 
to the people of the saints of the Most High " 
(Dan. vii. 27). But the time for its acquisition 
was definitely fixed at the coming of the Son of 
man in the clouds of heaven. For the Church to 
accept it in the present age was to fall before the 
very temptation where her Lord had stood firm. 

If we look upon that famous assembly, the 
Council of Nicea, a. d. 325, what a clear dividing 
line does it present between the old and the new, 
between the Church heavenly that had been, and 
the Church earthly that was to be ! Here on the 
one hand were the true successors of the apos- 
tles, bearing in their bodies the marks of the 
Lord Jesus ; their maimed limbs, and sightless 
eyes, and marred visages telling most expres- 
sively how, up to this time, the servants of Jesus 
had been " filling up that which is behind of the 
afflictions of Christ in the flesh for His body's 
sake, which is the Church." 



THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 



But here, on the other hand, in strange con- 
trast with these, was that central figure, arrayed 
in rich robes and seated on a golden chair in the 
midst of the assembly, — Constantine, the head 
of the Church. "What gain to our cause," whis- 
pered ambitious bishops, "that now we have a 
Christian emperor who will throw over us the 
shield of his protection and defend the orthodox 
faith with the sword ! " "Alas, what loss ! " might 
have sighed the angels, as they witnessed the 
nuptials of the Bride of Christ with the kings of 
the earth. But did not Constantine have a su- 
pernatural seal set upon his imperial patronage 
of the Church in that vision of the flaming cross 
displayed in the heavens with its motto, in this 
sign conquer ? Considering the real character 
of the emperor, as afterwards unfolded, a faith 
which should credit the alleged vision as from 
God would be far more difficult than a credulity 
which should ascribe it to the arch-tempter. For 
what was that cross by which the Church was 
henceforth to seek her conquests ? An eminent 
historian has described the startling impression 
made upon his mind by the sight of a crucifix • 
which was shown him in Italy, — a crucifix ex- 
quisitely carved, and studded with the rarest 
jewels, but which at the touch of a secret spring 
flew open, and proved itself to be a case for hold- 
ing a keen-edged and glittering Roman dagger. 



102 ECCE VENIT. 



There is a cross in which an apostle was wont 
to glory as that whereby the world was cruci- 
fied unto him, and he unto the world ; there is 
a cross concerning which our Lord spake, say- 
ing : " If any man will come after Me, let him 
deny himself and take up his cross and follow 
Me." But how utterly remote from these that 
cross which began to sway the Church from the 
age of Constantine, — that cross which carried 
the dagger of persecution in the crucifix of super- 
stition, thus supplanting "the sword of the 
Spirit" by "the sword of the magistrate," in 
order to further the gospel of peace ! 

This fall from heavenly to earthly citizenship 
was accompanied, moreover, by a gradual ex- 
change of spiritual worship for carnal supersti- 
tions. Worse than carnal, indeed ! Satan, who 
had tempted the Church into accepting earthly 
dominion from his hands, now seduced her into 
mixing his own ritual with her simple, primitive 
services. For we must not forget that, accord- 
ing to the explicit teaching of Scripture, pagan- 
ism is really demonism. " The things which the 
Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and 
not to God" (i Cor. x. 20), says the apostle. 
Whether the deluded votaries of Jupiter and 
Mars knew it or not, it was really true that de- 
mons were the instigators and recipients of their 



THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 103 

worship. Idolatry is always and everywhere the 
religion of Satan, ordained for stealing from God 
the homage of human hearts and turning it to 
himself. And so, little by little, the elements of 
paganism began to mingle with the worship of 
Christ, — holy water, candles, the wafer, images, 
processions, the adoration of saints and relics, 
the idolatry of the cross, and much more, — of 
all which we may assert confidently what Car- 
dinal Newman concedes concerning the first, that 
they were originally " the very instruments and 
appendages of demon-worship" 1 

But though the Church has thus been cor- 
rupted, out of it a faithful number has been pre- 
served to constitute the hidden Bride of Christ. 
Observe how graphically this is shown in the seal- 
ing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand 
in the seventh chapter of Revelation, — a passage 
not hard to understand if we bear in mind, as 
always in studying the Apocalypse, that Scrip- 
ture explains Scripture, and that history repeats 
history. 

In the eighth chapter of Ezekiel we find God 
denouncing the heathen abominations which have 
been mixed with the worship of His sanctuary, 
— ''the image of jealousy," the "weeping for 
Tammuz," and the eastward posture in which 

1 Development, pp 359, 360. 



104 ECCE VENIT. 



men "worshipped the sun towards the East." 
On account of these pollutions the Lord com- 
mands fearful judgments upon His people. But, 
before these judgments commence, He bids His 
messengers : " Go through the midst of the city, 
through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark 
upon the foreheads of tlie men that sigh and cry 
for all the abominations that be done in the midst 
thereof y As the destroyers go forth the injunc- 
tion is : " But come not near any man upon whom 
is the mark." Here is a sealed and spared rem- 
nant in the midst of the prevailing Jewish apos- 
tasy. Turn now to the corresponding story in 
the Apocalypse (Rev. vii.). The prophetic drama 
opens with the Church in her primitive exalta- 
tion, seated with Christ in heavenly places ; then 
the seals are unloosed, unfolding the successive 
chapters of Christian history, — conquest, conflict, 
famine, and pestilence ; the " Come ! " " Come ! " 
" Come ! " " Come ! " is heard breaking in before 
each opening era, answering in majestic anti- 
phon the Lord's " Behold, I come quickly," and 
showing the Church still true to her ancient 
hope; the martyrs, "slain for the word of God 
and the testimony which they held," invoke their 
Redeemer, " How long, O Lord ? " Then comes 
the crash of falling paganism, with the affrighted 
cry of the heathen before "the wrath of the 



THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 105 

Lamb," and Christianity, that was so long upon 
the scaffold and at the stake, is now upon the 
throne of the Caesars. 

But, alas, as we have seen, the Church, that 
has been "more than conqueror " through defeat, 
is now more than vanquished through victory ! 
For, having overthrown paganism, she became 
herself gradually paganized, and her worship cor- 
rupted with mixtures of heathen religion which 
the Scriptures call the worship of demons, — the 
employment of images and pictures, which of old 
provoked the Lord to jealousy; the turning to- 
wards the east, after the manner of the Babylo- 
nish sun-worshippers ; the signing with the cross, 1 
which was long connected with the sensual wor- 
ship of Tammuz. In fine, the identical abomina- 
tions which God had denounced in the Jewish 
sanctuary were now found in the Christian 
Church. And once more avenging scourges are 
let loose on Christendom — Saracen and Turkish 
invasions — to punish its inhabitants, " that they 
should not worship demons, and idols of gold, and 
silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood" (Rev. 
ix. 20). 

1 Julian, the emperor (361 A. D.), taunts the Christians with 
their idolatry, saying, " Ye worship the wood of the cross, mak- 
ing shadowy figures of it in the forehead, and painting it at the 
entrance of your houses." — See Note B. 



io6 ECCE VENIT. 



But before judgment begins, God's sealing and 
separation again take place : " And I saw another 
angel ascending from the east, having the seal of 
the living God, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither 
the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the ser- 
vants of God in tJieir foreheads." 1 The sealed 
company whose description follows is an elect 
company out of the tribes of spiritual Israel ; a 
small company compared with the great mass of 
nominal Christians; a perfect company, " one hun- 
dred and forty four thousand." It is the four- 
square multitude, identical with the four-square 
city, which appears in the twentieth chapter, 
coming down from God out of Heaven, and which 
is explained to be " the Bride, the Lamb's wife." 
It is a company " sealed with the Holy Spirit of 
promise," in contrast with the vast throngs of 
unconverted heathen who have been sealed with 
the sign of the cross ; and as chosen and faithful, 

1 Rev. vii. 2, 3. In the Apocalypse, where Jewish people, 
Jewish temple, and Jewish rites stand for corresponding Chris- 
tian facts, we have no doubt that this sealed company represents 
spiritual Israel, — real Christians out of the great multitude of 
nominal Christians. Dean Alford's challenge, to those who 
hold that literal Israel is here meant, is decisive. He asks 
whether " the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from 
God " (Rev. xxi. 10), must be taken to be the residence of literal 
Jews, because it bears the names of " the twelve tribes of the 
children of Israel." Few would admit this inference, we believe. 



THE FALL OF THE CHURCH. 107 

it exhibits the twofold signature of the seal of 
God, — " The Lord knoweth them that are His" 
and " Let every one that nameth the name of Christ 
depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. ii. 19). This true 
and unseduced Bride of Christ we meet through- 
out the Apocalypse, as we do throughout the 
whole course of Christian history. Whether as 
Waldensian, or Huguenot, or Lollard, she is ever 
hated by the apostate Church. But she preserves 
her virginity unstained, keeps herself undefiled 
from the harlot Church and her daughters, and 
when all Christendom has become earthly she 
maintains her heavenly citizenship ; now hidden 
out of sight, and now seen standing with the 
Lamb upon Mount Zion. So that to the end, as 
in the beginning, we greet her with the divine 
salutation, " But ye are come unto Mount Zion, 
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly 
Jerusalem." 

We shall meet her again in her final presenta- 
tion to the Bridegroom ; but for the present we 
must further trace the fortunes of her fallen 
sister. 



III. 

THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 

Out of the apostasy comes the Antichrist. To 
look for him without the Church in latter-day 
Judaism, or against the Church in latter-day infi- 
delity, is equally to miss the clear marks of iden- 
tification which have been set for our warning 
in "the sure word of prophecy." 

Exhorting the Thessalonian Christians " by 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our 
gathering together unto Him," the Apostle ad- 
monishes them not to be deceived : " For it will 
not be, except the falling away come first, and the 
man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that 
opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is 
called God or that is worshipped ; so that he sitteth 
in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God" 
(2 Thess. ii. 3, r. v.). Here is the great Pauline 
prediction of Antichrist ; and how rigidly does its 
language bind us to the conception of a dreadful 
enemy of God, springing up within the Christian 
Church! u Except the apostasy come first" the 
words read exactly. It can be " no political or 
politico-religious falling away " that is here indi- 



THE ADVENT OE ANTICHRIST 109 

cated, as Ellicott truly says ; but, according to the 
scriptural use of the term, "that religious and 
spiritual apostasy, that falling away from faith in 
Christ, of which the revelation of Antichrist shall 
be the concluding and most appalling phenom- 
enon." And looking backward over the history 
of the Church for eighteen hundred years, we ask 
how the prediction could be more literally fulfilled 
than in the astonishing eclipse of pagan and idol- 
atrous superstition under whose shadow two 
thirds of nominal Christendom now rests. So we 
may premise that we shall find the answer to this 
mysterious prophecy in the line of popes having 
their seat of authority in Rome, and extending 
their rule through more than twelve centuries of 
the Christian era. 

In examining this prediction we begin with 
that expression which is most central and sug- 
gestive : " He sitteth in the temple of God, setting 
himself forth as God." The interpretation which 
applies these words to the material temple rebuilt 
in Jerusalem is lacking both in accuracy and sig- 
nificance, — in accuracy, since there is no un- 
disputed instance in the New Testament where 
the phrase, 6 mo? rov 6eov, the temple of God, is 
applied to the Jewish temple ; and in significance, 
since it would be a matter of indifferent interest 
to Gentile Christians that some distant pretender 



ECCE VENIT. 



was to arise who should win the acceptance and 
homage of the Jews. 1 Scripture interprets Scrip- 
ture ; and when we hear false witnesses accusing 
Christ of saying, " I am able to destroy the tem- 
ple of God and to build it in three days," we have 
only to turn to another text to find that in what 
he said, "He spake of the temple of His body" 
(John ii. 21). So when a Judaizing interpretation 
would lead us, from this phrase of the Apostle, to 
imagine a future temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, en- 
throning an infidel Antichrist, we have only to 
collate the passages in which the expression oc- 

1 For the significance of this phrase, 6ua6s rod 6eov, see the 
following texts, the only ones where it occurs: i Cor. iii. 16; 
i Cor. iii. 17; 1 Cor. iii. 17; 11 Cor. vi. 16; 11 Cor. vi. 16; 
Rev. iii. 12; Rev. xi. 1-19. Of the word va6s alone, we beg it 
to be noticed that after the institution of the Christian Church 
it is never once applied to the temple in Jerusalem. Twenty-five 
times in the Acts the Jewish temple is spoken of, but the word 
Up6v is used in every instance, never vaos. Neither is the latter 
word once employed in any epistle to designate the Hebrew 
temple. How could God call that His temple {pa6s) when He 
had ceased to dwell therein {paw), — " Behold, your house is left 
unto you, desolate"? How surely must the woid apply to the 
Christian Church after that God by the Holy Ghost had taken 
up His abode in it! — " An holy temple (pa6s) in the Lord, in 
whom ye also are build ed togetJier for an habitation of God tJirough 
the Spirit" We believe that a candid exegesis of this phrase — 
Spaos rod deov — fixes the seat of the man of sin within the sphere 
of the Christian Church, as certainly as the designation of the 
seven hills fixes the seat of the woman of sin in the city of Rome. 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. ill 

curs to find how invariably it stands for Christ's 
mystical body, the Church, considered as a whole 
or in its members : " Know ye not that ye are the 
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth 
in you?" (i Cor. hi. 16.) 

Here is wisdom ; for why is the Church called 
the temple of God ? Because indwelt by the 
Spirit, presided in by the Holy Ghost. When 
this temple — the redeemed Church of Christ — 
was dedicated on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit 
descended in the semblance of tongues of fire, 
and it " sat — iKojSurcv — upon each one of them" 
Henceforth the body of believers, sanctified and 
sealed, is the true Cathedra, where the Spirit 
sits ; the real " Holy See," or seat of the Holy 
One. Sanctity or sacrilege, therefore, is indi- 
cated by this word "sit," according as it is ap- 
plied to God presiding in His own house, or to 
man thrusting himself into God's place. Observe 
how reverently the apostle Peter recognizes the 
Spirit's presence and primacy in the Church so 
soon as He is come. Rebuking the sin of Ana- 
nias, he says : "Why hath Satan filled thy heart 
to lie to the Holy Ghost ? " "Thou hast not lied 
unto men, but unto God" (Acts v. 3). No thought 
of His own primacy here ! Mark with wonder, 
also, the holy deference which the ascended Lord 
Himself yields to the Spirit, now that, as the 



H2 ECCE VENIT. 



promised Paraclete, He has taken His place in 
the Church. Seven times in his post-ascension 
gospel — the epistles to the seven churches — 
we hear Him say : " He that hath an ear, let him 
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches ; " as 
though to teach us that, while the Spirit is in 
office as President and Teacher, even the glori- 
fied Christ will not intrude into His seat ; but 
will commend us to His guidance, even as while 
He was on earth the Father commended His 
disciples to Him, saying, "This is My beloved 
Son, hear ye Him." 

We are prepared thus to comprehend the pre- 
sumption and blasphemy which it would imply 
for a man to sit in the Spirit's seat in the Temple 
of God. And we know that one of the most con- 
spicuous traits of the early apostasy was clerisy, 
the thrusting of man into the place of rule and 
authority which belong to the Spirit ; that this 
tendency constantly strengthened till the bish- 
ops, instead of humbly heeding the apostolic in- 
junction to feed the flock over which the Holy 
Ghost had made them overseers, began to lord 
it over that flock, rearing a primacy out of the 
pastorate, and a papacy out of the primacy, till 
the evil culminated in the sovereign pontiff usurp- 
ing the place of the Holy Ghost. For since the 
Holy Ghost is Christ's true and only Vicar on 






THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST 113 

earth, — "another Paraclete" sent to take the 
place of the ascended Lord, — what is he who 
should claim to be the Vicar of Christ but a 
usurper of the Spirit's seat in the temple of God? 
All the dark outlines of Paul's prophetic pic- 
ture of the Antichrist harmonize with this inter- 
pretation. He is called " The man of sin" as 
though to mark his utter contrast to the true pas- 
tor, whom the Scriptures name " The man of 
God!' But could the long succession of popes be 
designated by this individual name, "The man?" 
Yes ; the elect Church, extending through all 
ages, is called in Scripture "one new man " (Eph. 
ii. 15). The true line of spiritual ministers is 
evidently intended by "the man of God thor- 
oughly furnished," named in the Epistle to Tim- 
othy. So with other terms in which the singular 
is used for the plural : the succession of the 
Jewish priesthood is certainly meant in the state- 
ment in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " Into the 
second went the high priest alone once every 
year." Indeed, if it be urged that the name Anti- 
christ — 6 avTixpio-Tos — must mean an individual 
man, we find that this is not necessary, since the 
whole body of believers throughout the dispensa- 
tion is called by its counterpart "The Christ," 
6 Xpio-ros (1 Cor. xii. 12). Thus Scripture, as well 
as the common usage, in which we speak of the 



114 ECCE VEN1T. 



royal or of the ecclesiastical succession as " the 
king," or "the bishop," justify us in interpreting 
"the man of sin" to mean the line of pontiffs. 
As to the character indicated by the words, must 
we not admit its fulfilment to the uttermost in 
the pontificate ? Whatever virtue or mildness 
may have appeared in single instances, we are to 
remember that the pictures of prophecy are com- 
posite photographs, giving the main features com- 
bined as revealed throughout the age. Who can 
deny that many of the popes have been mon- 
sters of iniquity, or that the great majority have 
stained their hands with the blood of saints ? If 
so, does not this language sufficiently express 
their blended likeness ? 

Yet deeper and more dreadful grow the shad- 
ows with which inspiration paints the portrait : 
"The man of sin, the son of perdition" Only one 
has borne this latter name, Judas Iscariot, who 
with a kiss betrayed his Lord, and, with a " Hail, 
Master ! " on his lips, delivered Him to His ene- 
mies. And who was Judas, that his significant 
name should be thrown forward upon the coming 
Antichrist ? He was an apostate bishop, — "His 
bishopric let another take" (Acts i. 20). He was 
a thief who had the bag, and who, in order to en- 
rich himself, sold his Lord for thirty pieces of 
silver. Oh appalling counter-reality which we 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 115 

see emerging from the shadows of history ! the 
pontifical bag-bearer, rich with untold treasures 
purloined from his poor flock, delivering up the 
Body of Christ evermore to death, as the first 
betrayer did the Head, till the enthroned Re- 
deemer must have groaned again and again, as of 
old: "Why persecutest thou Me?" Revolting 
as it is to our Christian charity to dwell upon 
these things, we are compelled, in a time when 
a speculative interpretation is joining hands with 
a sacramental apostasy, to veil the face of Anti- 
christ. Yet, if only once in the ages, — after 
Waldensian slaughter or St. Bartholomew's mas- 
sacre, — we could see this vicar of Iscariot fling- 
ing down his silver and crying, " I have betrayed 
the innocent blood," what haste would we make 
to throw the mantle of forgetfulness over his 
ghastly deeds ! 

The marks of correspondence between this 
counter-Christ and the true are most striking at 
every point. He has his Parousia and his Apoca- 
lypse — his coming and his revelation — as does 
the Christ. The Son of God enters His earthly 
career through incarnation, — " Great is the mys- 
tery of godliness, He who was manifested in the 
flesh," — and the son of perdition does the same : 
" The mystery of iniquity doth already work." 
As it was said of the Lord's betrayer, "Then 



Il6 ECCE VENIT. 



entered Satan into Judas Iscariot," so the begin- 
ning of this enemy is through a dark, mysterious 
entering in of the Evil One for corrupting the 
Church. The mystery of godliness is God hum- 
bling Himself to become man ; the mystery of 
iniquity is man exalting himself to become God, 
— "Ye shall be as gods." The mystery of god- 
liness is loyalty ; the Son of God, through the 
Holy Spirit, rendering perfect obedience to the 
will and word of the Father : the mystery of in- 
iquity is lawlessness, dvo/u'a ; the son of perdition, 
through " the spirit that now worketh in the 
children of disobedience," subverting God's law, 
and rule, and order in the Church. In the one 
we see Christ emptying Himself of His glory ; 
in the other we see Antichrist filling himself with 
his glory, so that he " opposeth and exalteth him- 
self above every one called God or an object of 
worship," and "sitteth in the temple of God, set- 
ting himself forth as God." 1 How marvellously 

1 "'As God, showing Himself that He is God.'' For many hun- 
dred years, to this day, the Roman pontiffs have literally fulfilled 
this prophecy of St. Paul. When Cornelius, the centurion, fell 
down at Peter's feet and worshipped him, St. Peter forbade him, 
saying, ' Stand tip ! I myself also am a man.'' But the self- 
called successors of St. Peter sit in the temple of God as God. 
For many centuries each of them, at his inauguration, has taken 
his seat in God's Church, upon God's altar, and, so sitting, has 
been adored by men falling down before him and kissing his 
feet." — Bishop Wordsworth on the Apocalypse, p. 394. 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 



has this latter prediction been realized ! " Do- 
mine Dens ! " If but once we heard these words 
addressed to the pope by his allowance, it should 
lead us, as the students of this prophecy, to 
ask, "Art thou he that should come?" What if 
employed repeatedly, and with every variety of 
adoration ? Alexander VI. , the Nero of the Pon- 
tificate, as he has been called, moving to his con- 
secration, passes under a triumphal arch, on 
which is inscribed : " Caesar was a man ; Alexan- 
der is a God." Marcellus, in an address to Pope 
Leo X. at the fifth Lateran Council, exclaims, 
"Thou art another God on earth " — tn denique 
alter Dens i?i terris. Gregory II. boasts to the 
Greek emperor : "All the kings of the West rev- 
erence the pope as a God on earth." Pope 
Nicholas writes : " Wherefore if those things 
which I do be said to be done, not of man, but of 
God, what can yon, make me but God ? Again, if 
the prelates of the Church be called and counted 
of Constantine for gods, I, then, being above all 
prelates, seem by this reason to be above all 
gods." These instances of deification, if there 
were no more, would fill out every line and speci- 
fication of this Pauline prediction ; while that cul- 
minating act of 1870 — the placing of the crown 
of infallibility upon the head of the pope by the 
Ecumenical Council — would set the attesting 



n8 ECCE VENIT. 



seal of literal history to this astonishing word of 
literal prophecy. 

We know how some, at this point, have started 
on an adventurous hunt into the future for an 
Antichrist who is at once a God-denier and a God- 
pretender; since the apostle John has declared 
concerning this terrible personage that he " de- 
nieth the Father and the Son." But the candid 
reader has only to compare this word " deny " as 
employed by John with its use by Paul, and Peter, 
and Jude, in their predictions of the falling away, 
to see that the reference is beyond question to 
the denial of apostasy, and not to the denial of 
infidelity; to such as "profess that they know 
God, but in works deny Him," and not to such 
as are avowedly and openly atheistic. 1 The anom- 
aly of bald infidel worship, exacted by one who at 
once deifies and undeifies, has no place, we are 
persuaded, in this prophecy. Nor has that other 
conception of a Napoleonic demigod drunk wit-h 
the infatuation of world-rule, — a conception which 

1 See Titus i. 16, 2 Peter ii. 1, Jude 4. The latest dictionary 
of the Greek New Testament — the Grimm, edited by Thayer 
— gives this as the second definition of apueofiai, to deny : 
"'Api/eoyuat, God and Christ, is used of those who, by cherishing 
and disseminating pernicious opinions and immorality, are ad- 
judged to have apostatized from God and Christ" 1 John ii. 22 
(cf. iv. 2; 2 John vii. 11) ; Jude 4 ; 2 Pet. ii. 1. 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST 119 

has greatly colored the imaginations of many ex- 
positors. That the man of sin is identical with 
the "little horn" of Daniel, and the "beast" of 
the Apocalypse, is clear enough ; and that as such 
he is a temporal ruler, no one doubts. And so 
has he proved ; for when has the world seen a line 
of world-sovereigns like the popes ? But can we 
imagine such a blending, in any single infidel 
man, of secular and spiritual imperialism as is 
foreshadowed in this compound prediction of 
Scripture, and as is fulfilled in this double-headed 
ruler in the Vatican ? The pontiffs are the lineal 
successors of the Caesars, as they claim to be of 
the apostles. Mr. Pember, in describing this 
combination of office, gives a perfect description 
of the sovereign pontiff, though he did not intend 
it as such : — 

"At length, however, Julius Caesar, who had 
previously accepted the office of Pontifex Maxi- 
mus, solved the difficulty by constituting himself 
emperor. He thus became the first Roman in 
whom the powers of the Pontifex and the Impe- 
rator were combined, and was probably the first 
to be recognized as the head of the Oriental 
priesthood, — the Roman pontificate having pre- 
viously been distinct from and inferior to the 
Chaldean, with which it was thenceforth identi- 
fied. He was consequently declared to be divine, 



ECCE VENIT. 



and exercised a wonderful influence over his 
army and the people, even going to the length of 
openly prescribing to the latter for whom they 
should vote. And lastly he corrected the calendar 
and changed times by inserting two additional 
months, in accordance with the pontifical preroga- 
tive, which gave him his title of King of the 
Ages. The power which he had acquired de- 
scended to his successors ; so that in the statues 
of the emperors, the ring is always engraved with 
the figure of a lituus, or crosier, to indicate the 
highest quality of imperatorial rank, — that of 
Pontifex Maximus." 1 And the popes are the 
successors of these successors. 

Such is the figure which history presents as its 
answer to prophecy. Is it only the eye of bigotry 
that can detect a likeness between the two ? 

The germs of this evil system were growing in 
the apostle's day, — " The mystery of iniquity 
doth already work''' Is it credible that it should 
have continued operating through eighteen cen- 
turies, in order to bring forth some yet future 
short-lived, infidel Antichrist, so transcendently 
wicked that all which has gone before, with its 
unspeakable record of blood and blasphemy, is 
only an indifferent prototype of him ? If charity 
could bias our interpretation at all, which it must 

1 Antichrist, Babylon, and the Coming Kingdovi, p. 81. 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST 121 

not, how little mercy have they who, in order to 
relieve the papacy of this stigma, darken our 
future with such an appalling apparition ! More- 
over, such a conception puts a strain upon our 
credulity greater than it can bear. For when we 
study Satan's career in Scripture and in history, 
we find that open infidelity is little in his line. 
His way has ever been to masquerade in the 
symbols and sacraments of the Church ; to manip- 
ulate the machinery of spurious miracles ; to 
put on a sad countenance as the hypocrites do, 
that behind it he may mock at God. Therefore 
the epiphany of " that Wicked One" should be 
looked for in a feigned religiousness rather than 
in a blatant atheism ; as it is tersely said in the 
Noble Lesson of the Waldensians : " Antichrist is 
the falsehood of eternal damnation covered with 
the appearance of truth and righteousness of 
Christ and his Spouse." 1 

For this reason we are not surprised at the 
prediction of startling wonder-working as signal- 
izing the advent of this pseudo-Christ, "whose 
coming is after the working of Satan in all power, 
and signs, and wonders of falsehood." One who 
is at all acquainted with the history of the Middle 

1 "Antichrist es falseta de damnation ceterna cuberta de specie 
de la verita e de la justitia de Christ e de la soa sposa" — Dcs 
Eglises Vaudoises, chap. xiv. 



122 ECCE VENIT. 



Ages need not be told how exactly the papal 
reality fits this prediction ; how the chaste and 
artless miracles of the primitive Church were 
travestied by those of the mediaeval Church in 
the grotesque signs and wonders alleged to have 
been wrought at saints' tombs, and through the 
agency of martyrs' bones and sacred relics. Thus 
was the man of sin to authenticate his ministry 
" in all deceit of ' unrighteotisness for them that are 
perishing ; " and the issue would be that God 
should " se?id them a working of delusion that they 
should believe the lie, that they may all of tJiem be 
judged who believed 7tot the truth." x And so has 
it come to pass ; the assumptions of the priest- 
hood culminating in a deified man, and the work- 
ing of delusion culminating in a deified wafer. 
A devout minister in the Church of England, 
crying out in pain at the apostasy now repeating 
itself in his own communion, boldly says, con- 
cerning the miracle of transubstantiation : " The 
crowning error into which the visible Church was 
by degrees led — the process of Satanic inspira- 
tion extending from the eighth to the thirteenth 
century — was, that the priesthood possessed a 
divine power to locate the Lord Jesus Christ on 
an earthly altar, and to lift him up, under the veils 
of bread and wine, to the adoration of the people. 

1 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10 (Ellicott's translation). 



THE ADVENT OE ANTICHRIST. 123 

It is in this blasphemous fraud that the apostle 
Paul's prophecy finds its accurate fulfilment. Of 
the apostasy forerunning the second coming of 
Christ he says, that the deluded followers of the 
Lawless One should believe 'the lie,' — to ij/ev&os. 
Of all the impostures that the Father of Lies ever 
palmed upon a credulous world, this doctrine, 
which both logically and theologically repeats 
millions of times the humiliation of the Blessed 
Redeemer, necessarily transcends all ! Hence it 
is that the definite article is placed by the Holy 
Ghost before this word 'lie.' " x 

Of " the mouth speaking great things and 
blasphemies," ascribed to this being both in 
Daniel and Revelation, we have only to inquire 
what mouth-assumption could surpass that con- 
tained in the well-known Bull Unam Sanctam of 
Boniface VIII. : "It is essential for salvation for 
every human creature to be subject to the Roman 
pontiff." Blasphemy means usurpation of the 
prerogatives of the Deity rather than profane 
denial. When the Jews accused Jesus of this 
sin, this was the ground : " Why does this man 
speak blasphemies ? Who can forgive sins but 
God alone?" Again: "For a good work we 
stone Thee not ; but for blasphemy, and because 
Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God." Does 

1 Ormiston, Satan of Scripture, p. 126. 



124 ECCE VENIT. 



not the man of Rome stand openly convicted on 
both these grounds ? 

In the expression, "He who now letteth" we 
have one of the most significant touches in the 
whole picture. What hindered the manifestation 
of Antichrist ? " And now ye know what with- 
holdeth," says the apostle. If they did know, 
and passed the secret from lip to lip, tradition on 
this point is valuable. Hence when we find that 
it was the well-nigh unanimous understanding 
among the Christian fathers, from those who 
touched hands with the apostles onward, that it 
was the Roman Empire that must be taken out 
of the way before the man of sin could be re- 
vealed, we have strong reason to credit this 
opinion. And mark how the reserve of the apos- 
tle, in not mentioning this hindering power, 
bears out this interpretation. If, as some now 
say, it was the Holy Spirit that was intended, 
we can see no reason why He should not have 
been distinctly named ; but if it was the Roman 
Empire, there is every ground for the apostle's 
withholding the fact from his epistle, and com- 
mitting it only to oral tradition. For the epistle 
would be publicly read in the churches, and its 
contents reported, perhaps, to the ears of the 
rulers. To say that the empire, which was held 
to be eternal, was about to pass away, would 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 125 

savor of treason, and would form a just ground 
for persecution. And therefore, it would seem, 
the apostle gave it out as a whispered secret : 
"Remember ye not that when I was yet with 
yon I told yon these things? And now ye know 
what witJiholdetJi that he might be revealed in 
his time" (2 Thes. ii. 6). For once tradition has 
authority, since in this chapter the apostle not 
only enjoins that those addressed " obey our word 
by this epistle," but also "hold to the traditions 
which ye have been taught, whether by word or 
our epistle" And we know on the fullest testi- 
mony that the opinion named was held as a tra- 
dition apostolical in the early Church ; and as 
such it has come down to us. If, then, the Thes- 
salonians knew, and that which they knew has 
been, with reasonable certainty, reported to us, is 
it presumptuous that. we should strongly believe? 
If we are right at this point, a strong light is 
thrown upon the question raised in the early part 
of the chapter, whether a singular noun can stand 
for a succession of individuals. This hindering 
power is "he that letteth" which antiquity inter- 
preted to mean the succession of emperors. On 
which Bishop Wordsworth remarks, " As he that 
letteth is a public person or series of persons, so 
is he that sitteth also ; " the one being the suc- 
cession of emperors, and the other being the 
succession of popes. 



126 ECCE VENIT. 



And here comes in the most weighty consider- 
ation that so it was, that the papacy did actually 
emerge upon the subsidence of the empire. Car- 
dinal Manning, who certainly has no preposses- 
sion in favor of the view we are advocating, 
writes thus : " The possession of the pontiffs com- 
mences with the abandonment of Rome by the 
emperors. . . . No sovereign has ever reigned in 
Rome since, except the Vicar of J e sits Christ." 1 
Singular coincidence ! does the reader exclaim ? 
No, not singular ; it was bound to be so, on ac- 
count of certain words which an apostle wrote 
centuries before under the inspiration of the 
Holy Ghost. ( Prophecy is the mould in which 
history is cast ; and no violence of man, no con- 
vulsions of nations, can either break that mould 
or constrain the course of history, that the one 
should not answer to the other point by point, 
feature by feature. It is for the Christian in- 
terpreter to note such correspondences as they 
occur, counting each conformation as a confirma- 
tion for establishing the sure word of prophecy. 

1 " By a singular arrangement of Divine Providence, as we 
have said on a former occasion, it happened that the Roman 
Empire, having fallen, and being divided into many kingdoms 
and divers states, the Roman pontiff, in the midst of such great 
variety of kingdoms, and in the actual state of human society, 
was invested with his civil authority." — The Pope's Allocution, 
1866. 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 127 

A system of exposition which withdraws our at- 
tention from these coincidences, and sets us to 
gazing into blank space for something to emerge, 
of which not even the shadow is in sight, we can- 
not think profitable. There are things to come 
which ought powerfully to attract our attention, 
but our eyes should not be so holden thereby 
that we cannot see what is passing and what has 
already come to pass upon the earth. Such cor- 
respondences of history with prophecy, of fact 
with prediction, as these that we have pointed 
out, cannot occur by chance. And in view of 
them we may as certainly hold the papacy to be 
the fulfilment of Paul's prediction of the Anti- 
christ as we hold the face of a coin to be the ful- 
filment of the die in which it was struck. 1 

1 It is coming to be admitted even by futurist interpreters 
that the word "Antichrist " signifies a vice-Christ, rather than an 
open opponent of Christ. Andrew Jukes says : " I am satisfied 
that, according to the derivation of the word, Antichrist means 
primarily *in the place of Christ? rather than 'against Christ? 
'Avtl — in Latin, vice, whence we get the word Vicar, the very 
title claimed in reference to Christ by the Pope of Rome — is 
literally ' in the place of.'' " He cites, among others, the follow- 
ing examples: 'Avdviraros (Acts xiii. 7), the deputy, or procon- 
sul, not " against the consul," but " in the place of the consul ; " 
'AvreiriaKOTTos (Gregor. Naz.), a vice-bishop, one acting for the 
bishop. That this is not a merely modern and Protestant inter- 
pretation will appear from the fact that Lactantius (260-330) 
speaks thus of this personage : " Now this is he who is called 



:28 ECCE VENIT. 



We end where we began, — with the temple of 
God. The dreadful prediction of the destiny of 
the man of sin is in the words: "Whom the 
Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, 
and shall destroy with the brightness of His com- 
ing." Behold how the consuming has been going 
on within the last few centuries, especially during 
our own time ; so that an eminent writer has 
declared that in the downfall of the temporal 
power the papacy met with the heaviest loss 
which has befallen her in a thousand years. But 
of the rest how can we speak but with an un- 
utterable awe and pity : " Whom He shall destroy 
with the brightness of His appearing'' For what ? 
" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, 
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If 
any man defile the temple of God, him will God 
destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which 
temple are ye" (i Cor. iii. 17). What language 
can tell how this temple has been defiled ? The 
heathen rites and ceremonies corrupting the wor- 
ship of Christ ; the idols and the sacrilege ; the 
worship of the queen of heaven ; the blood of 
God's saints staining His own courts ; the blas- 
phemy of a man professing to forgive sin ; of a 

Antichrist ; but he shall falsely call himself Christ, and shall 
fight against the truth." — The Divine Listitutes, lib. vii., cap. 
xix. 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 1 29 

man snatching the attribute of Divine infalli- 
bility ; of a man receiving worship from his fel- 
lows ; in fine, of a man sitting in the seat of the 
Holy Ghost, shutting the mouth of God's Spirit, 
— the Holy Scriptures, — and bidding the Church 
hear only his own "mouth speaking great things/' 
Idolatry of Mary ; idolatry of the mass ; idolatry 
of the cross ! How solemnly sounds God's word 
in view of it all ! "And what agreement hath a 
temple of God with idols?" (2 Cor. vi. 16, r. v.) 
Do we not know, if we have read the Scriptures, 
that it is such desecration of His house, and such 
defiling of His worship, which have ever called 
down the severest judgments of God ? Let us 
recall the fact, not that we may redouble our 
denunciation of an apostate Church, but that we 
may search our own sanctuaries, with a lighted 
candle, to see if aught of the corrupting leaven 
be found among us. 

What our eyes see is, again, an astonishing seal 
set to the truth of this great prediction. Who 
has not heard the oft-quoted saying that the con- 
dition of the Jews in the present dispensation is 
the most striking verification of the truth of the 
Scripture ? Just as was predicted, they have 
been scattered, peeled, and subjected to daily 
death ; and yet here they are preserved as a dis- 
tinct people, a burning bush ever aflame with 
persecuting fires, but not consumed. 



T.30 ECCE VENIT. 



So has the line of pontiffs continued. 1 Taking 
its rise in the beginnings of the age, gradually 
strengthening and maturing till fully developed, 
with temporal and spiritual sovereignty centring 
in one head, it has lived on for more than twelve 
hundred years, and there it sits to-day on its seat 
in Rome, in spite of every likelihood that it would 
long ago have passed away, the longest line of 
rulers the Western world has ever seen. As the 
Jewish succession remains unbroken, that the last 
generation of cast-off Israel may confront the 
descending Lord at His advent, looking on Him 
whom they pierced, and mourning because of 
Him with saving penitence that "so all Israel 
shall be saved ; " so likewise the long succession 

1 " And power was given wito him to continue forty and two 
months''' (Rev. xiii. 5). This period of Antichrist's duration we 
hold to be, according to the "year-day theory," twelve hundred 
and sixty years. To those who deride such interpretation as 
strained, and insist that the words mean three years and a half, 
we reply : What expositor has interpreted the ten days' 1 tribula- 
tion in Rev. ii. 10 to be ten literal days ? But if the Holy Spirit 
meant years, in the Apocalypse, why did He not say years ? it is 
replied. Why, when He meant churches and ministers, and 
kingdoms and kings and epochs, did He say candle-sticks, and 
stars, and beasts, and horns, and trumpets ? Yet, having used 
these miniature symbols of greater things, how fitting that the 
accompanying time should also be in miniature ! To use literal 
dates would distort the imagery, as though you should put a 
life-sized eye in a small-sized photograph. 



THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST. 131 

of hierarchs continues, that the last Pontifex 
Maximus may stand face to face with the Lord at 
His appearing, and receive his doom, in the cut- 
ting off of his usurping line forever. As we 
read all this, let it be with bowed heads and with 
weeping eyes, while we ponder the lesson, once 
more, of the terrible consequences of pride, and 
ambition, and worldliness, when permitted to run 
their course in the Church of God. 



IV. 

THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 

Among the presumptuous titles ascribed to the 
Papal Antichrist is that of " True Lord and Hus- 
band of the Church." If he is such, we must find 
in Scripture the portraiture of his bride, that we 
may carefully distinguish her from the wife of the 
Lamb. As the most complete and graphic pic- 
ture of the "man of sin" is found in the second 
chapter of Thessalonians, so the most vivid por- 
trayal of the woman of sin with whom he is allied 
is found in the seventeenth chapter of Revelation. 
Here we behold her introduced under the name 
of " The great harlot that sitteth upon many 
waters" and she is pictured as riding upon a beast 
with "seven heads aiid ten horns." These sym- 
bols are interpreted for us by the Spirit of God, 
so that in our study of this mystery we have a 
divinely revealed clue with which to begin. " The 
waters which thozc sawest where the harlot sitteth 
are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, a?id 
tongues." Wide dominion and far-reaching sway 
over the inhabitants of earth are here indicated. 
" The seven heads are the seven mountains on 



THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 133 

which the woman sitteth" In poetry and in his- 
tory, on monuments and on coins, Rome is known 
as "the seven - hilled city." Propertius thus 
speaks of her : — 

The city high on seven hills 
That rules the boundless earth." 

The designation is so exact that there is a well- 
nigh unanimous consent among Romanist and 
Protestant interpreters alike, that the ancient 
imperial city on the Tiber is hereby pointed out, 
though the former contend that the prophecy 
relates to pagan Rome. "The great harlot " is a 
term equally clear in its significance ; it being the 
representation of a fallen and apostatized Church. 
"How is the faithful city become an harlot!" 
(Isa. i. 21) exclaims Jehovah in His lament over 
backsliding Jerusalem. " Thou hast played the 
harlot with many lovers" (Jer. iii. 1) he cries 
again. And once more : " Though Israel play the 
harlot, let not Judah offend" (Hos. iv. 15). Thus 
in the Scripture's own light we discern this mis- 
tress to be the faithless Church who, having vio- 
lated her betrothment, and having ceased to look 
for the return of her affianced Husband, has ad- 
mitted others into his place and become the par- 
amour of the kings of the earth. Most distinctly, 
then, are the character, and dominion, and resi- 
dence of this ecclesiastical woman denned. 



34 ECCE VEN1T. 



If we turn now to the prophetic description of 
the woman's dress, we are almost startled by its 
realistic character : "And the woman was arrayed 
in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold 
and precious stones and pearls." Who does not 
know that scarlet and purple are as truly " the 
colors" of the papacy as the red, white and blue 
are of the United States ? In the Ceremoniale 
Romanum — an ancient book of directions, — the 
dress and adornments with which the pope must 
be clad on assuming his office are minutely de- 
scribed. Of the different articles of attire speci- 
fied, five are scarlet. A vest covered with pearls, 
and a mitre adorned with gold and precioits stones 
are also named in the prescribed apparel. Nor 
need we go back to so early authority on this 
point. Our own eyes bear witness to these mis- 
tress-marks as they appear to-day. What a pro- 
fusion still of purple robes and costly jewels! 
When the first American Cardinal was created, 
the infection of " cardinal red" seized on fashion- 
able circles throughout the land, far and wide, 
ladies' bonnets and dresses fairly blushing with it, 
till society seemed streaked through and through 
with the hues of the scarlet woman, as when a 
blood-clot falls into an urn of water and is diffused 
abroad. If any say that it is only a narrow and 
fanciful sectarianism that can detect such minute 



THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 135 

identity between the prophetic picture and the 
papal reality, they have but to be reminded that 
so honored a Catholic saint as Beneventura con- 
densed this whole apocalyptic prediction into a 
single pungent sentence, and applied it to the 
papacy of his day, when he designated her as " a 
wantoii clad in scarlet." 

And how striking it is to note that true in- 
stinct which leads the ritualists of our time to 
copy the dress-marks of Rome, just as they are 
reviving her pagan ceremonial and doctrine, — so 
strongly is the prophetic negative bound to re- 
produce itself in every photograph of history ! 1 

1 How the Anglican Church is " resuming the decorations of 
the harlot " appears from the following : In the services con- 
nected with the recent consecration of the Cathedral of Truro, 
the red vestments, which were abolished in the reign of Eliza- 
beth, were again so conspicuous that Punch photographed the 
scene under the heading of " Outbreak of Scarlatina at Truro." 
Join with this the following Church news : " Last Sunday the 
rector of St. Paul's Church wore a white stole embroidered in 
three shades of blue, the same done in monograms and flowers 
set with carbuncles and bugles ; with Maltese crosses set with 
sapphires and diamonds ; with lilies set with garnets, — the 
whole number of diamonds numbering forty, and of precious 
stones one hundred and thirty -five : estimated cost of this me- 
morial gift, £ 1,000. A visitor describes the Bishop of Lincoln as 
' adorned with mitre and cloth of gold, his orphrevs so lavishly 
decorated with amethysts, pearls, topazes, and chrysolites set in 
silver as fairly to dazzle the beholder.' How repulsive is all 
this to such as seek to maintain the simplicity that is in 
Christ ! " 



136 ECCE VENIT. 



What is that chalice which the woman lifts 
aloft? "Having a golden cup in her hand, full 
of abominations and filthiness of her fornication." 
Idolatry and spiritual apostasy are clearly sym- 
bolized here. Concerning ancient Babylon the 
prophet wrote : " Babylon hath been a golden 
cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth 
drunken ; the nations are drunken with her wine, 
therefore the nations are mad " (Jer. li. 7). 

Euphratean Babylon was the prolific mother of 
idolatry, — that idolatry which Scripture clearly 
shows to be the liturgy of demons, — and with 
this she seduced God's ancient people into spir- 
itual fornication. And now the Church, having 
become paganized by absorbing into herself the 
literal elements of this ancient heathenism, is 
photographed as mystical Babylon, in her turn 
enticing to idolatry and spiritual unchastity. 

It is no exaggeration to say that the Eucharis- 
tic cup which Rome now puts to the lips of her 
communicants, with its mixture of miracle and 
magic, resembles more nearly the chalice of the 
ancient Chaldean " Mysteries " than it does the 
chaste and simple memorial cup which Christ left 
in the hands of His Bride, the Church ; and, in 
view of the transformation which has taken place, 
what startling significance is there for Roman- 
izers in the apostle's saying : " Ye cannot drink 



THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 137 

the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Ye 
cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the 
table of demons" ! (1 Cor. x. 21), — startling, if 
indeed it be true, that the Bride of Christ, who in 
the beginning is described as having " turned to 
God from idols to serve the living and true God, 
and wait for His Son from heaven," is become 
such that she is now turning men from God to 
serve idols, seducing them to make an image of 
the sacrament, before which they fall down in 
worship. 1 

"And His name shall be in their foreheads," is 
the promise given to the Bride of the Lamb. 
And Antichrist's bride must maintain this par- 
ody, so, as the spouse of him who is " the mys- 
tery of iniquity" this woman of the Apocalypse is 
thus presented to us : "And upon her forehead a 
name written," "mystery, babylon the great, 

THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF 

the earth." Need we ask who it is that arro- 
gates to herself the title, " Rome, Mother and 
Mistress ? " Striking as are the parallels, even 
more so are the contrasts. "Jerusalem which is 
above, who is the mother of us all" confesses the 

1 " If any man shall say that this holy sacrament should not 
be adored, nor carried about in processions, nor held up publicly 
to the people to adore it, or that its worshippers are idolaters, 
let him be accursed-" — Council of Trent. 



138 ECCE VENIT. 



Holy Church whose citizenship is in heaven ; 
the Church which has become earthly and idola- 
trous is characterized as " Babylon the great, the 
mother of harlots.'' The Bride is " arrayed in fine 
linen, clean and white" which is the " righteous- 
ness of saints." The Harlot is u arrayed in pur- 
ple and scarlet color" which is the vesture of 
kings. The union of the true Church with Christ 
in Heaven is a "great mystery;" the union of 
the false Church with the rulers of this world is 
the counter "mystery" 

As for that other cup with which the Harlot 
has intoxicated herself, — " / saw the woman 
drunken with the blood of saints and with the 
blood of martyrs" — what language shall we bor- 
row to describe it ? It has been estimated that 
the papacy has directly or indirectly slain fifty 
millions of martyrs on account of their faith, the 
vast majority of these being sincere Christians, 
whose only crime was that they would not own 
allegiance to Antichrist. Let charity discount 
the number by one half, if it were possible, and 
let her suggest every conceivable palliation for 
the murder of the rest, and we still have the 
most ghastly chapter which the volume of history 
contains. Would that we might mingle our weep- 
ing with floods of repentant tears from the # eyes 
of this cruel mother, if, forsooth, we could thereby 



THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 139 

mitigate the wrath treasured up against the day 
of wrath which her crimes have earned. But, 
alas! we find "Te Deums" sung over Huguenot 
slaughters, but not one papal Miserere can we 
discover. Commemorative medals are still ex- 
tant signalizing the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
but not one monumentum lacrimarum over that 
event is to be found in all the archives of the 
seven-hilled city. " And when I saw her / won- 
dered with great wonder," writes the Seer ; and 
now that history has filled in every detail of the 
crimson outline of prophecy, we wonder with 
even profounder amazement that such a demoni- 
acal tragedy could ever have been enacted in the 
name of Christianity. But we remember that 
the woman who did these things was "drunken." 
And there is no intoxication so profound as that 
induced by pagan superstition tinctured with 
Christian blood. Even Martin Luther, while yet 
in the delirium tremens of popery, raged with 
this blood-thirst. " So intoxicated was I, and 
drenched in papal dogmas," are his words, " that 
I would have been most ready to murder, or as- 
sist others in murdering, any person who should 
have uttered a syllable against the duty of obe- 
dience to the Pope." Nay, even those who 
have been sobered by generations of Protestant 
abstinence from persecution, if they once return 



140 ECCE VENIT. 



to the cups of the Harlot, speedily exhibit symp- 
toms of the old appetite, as witnessed, for exam- 
ple, in the oft-quoted saying of Dr. Manning, 
now cardinal, when urging Romish aggression in 
England : " It is yours, right reverend fathers, to 
subjugate and subdue, to bend and to break the 
will of an imperial race." 

This mystical name of "Babylon the Great" is 
marvellously apt on many grounds. It was lit- 
eral Babylon that was the most constant and 
inveterate persecutor of ancient Israel. So was 
this typical Babylon to be the most malignant 
persecutor of spiritual Israel, the true and uncor- 
rupted Church of Christ. This were enough to 
justify the analogy. But we believe that there 
is even a profounder significance in the name. 
Papal Babylon, as we have said above, was to re- 
enact the idolatries of Chaldean Babylon to such 
an extent that she would be the restored image 
and counterpart of her. How the Babylonian 
cultus was diffused abroad among surrounding 
nations, and how it reappeared in the Roman 
Empire, and was in turn copied and reproduced 
by the papacy, is a matter of history. It is too 
great a subject to be discussed in a single chap- 
ter. The most that we can do now is to note 
some marks of identification between the idola- 
try of the mystical city and that of the literal 



THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 141 

city. Read in Jeremiah xliv. Jehovah's terrible 
denunciation of the Jews in Egypt for their ob- 
stinate worship of "The Queen of Heaven." This 
was Semiramis, or Astarte, the great Babylonian 
goddess. She was called "the mother of the 
gods," and was "most worshipped of all the 
divinities." In the corruptions of Christianity, 
the Virgin Mary, astonishing to tell, was gradu- 
ally lifted into her place, and adored under the 
identical titles, till to-day the voice of the pa- 
pacy is exactly that of apostate Israel : " But we 
will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth 
out of our own mouth to burn incense unto the 
queen of heaven" (Jer. xliv. 17). Not only in- 
cense, but, these same Jews confessed, "we did 
make our cakes to worship her" (v. 19). Here 
the pedigree of the wafer is suggested ; and 
if one will candidly trace back the descent, we 
challenge him to resist the conclusion that the 
wafer comes from the Babylonish cake, its round- 
ness being due to the fact that it was originally 
an image of the sun, and worshipped as such. 
Consider, also, the use, in worship, of candles, 
which the ritualists are now so sedulously employ- 
ing to light themselves back into the Dark Ages. 
In the apocryphal book of Baruch there is a 
minute and extended description of the Babylo- 
nish worship, with all its dark and abominable 



142 ECCE VENIT. 



accessories. Of the gods which they set up in 
their temples, it is said that their " eyes be full 
of dust through the feet of them that come in." 
And then it is added that the worshippers " light 
for them candles, yea, more than for themselves, 
whereof they cannot see one" In the pagan wor- 
ship at Rome, which was confessedly borrowed 
largely from Assyria and Egypt, we have ac- 
counts of processionals, in which surpliced priests 
marched with wax candles in their hands, carry- 
ing the images of their gods ; and we find a 
Christian writer, Lactantius, a. d. 260-330, ridi- 
culing the heathen custom of lighting candles to 
their gods, " because they are of the earth, and 
stand in need of lights that they may not be in 
darkness," which he certainly would not have 
done had the practice formed any part of prim- 
itive Christian worship. 1 And time would fail 
to tell of the confessional, so closely reprodu- 
cing that imposed on the initiates in the ancient 
mysteries ; and of holy water, of the eastward pos- 
ture, of the signing with the cross, and of cere- 
monies and vestments, nameless and incompre- 
hensible. Granting, for the sake of charity, that 

1 Divine Institutes, b. vi. 2. Bishop Coxe, the High Church 
editor of the American edition of the Fathers, gives this note on 
this passage : " The ritual use of lights was unknown to the 
primitive Christians, however harmless it may be." 



THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. 143 

altars and incense were borrowed from Jewish 
worship, — which things, indeed, were done away 
in Christ, — it still remains true that the great 
bulk of the papal ceremonies were originally part 
and portion of primitive idol-worship, of which 
idol-worship Babylon was the chief mother and 
nurse. 1 

The complete image, as presented in this vis- 
ion, is one of the most striking in all prophecy. 
"And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored 
beast" — the apostate Church riding upon the 
state, supported by it, and yet controlling it. 
Who does not know how exactly this harmonizes 
with the facts ; how the Church, upon her fall, 
saddled herself upon the empire, till, acquiring 
complete control, she became able to hold it in 
by bit and bridle of bull and concordat, compel- 
ling it to bear her weight and to do her will ? 
Blasphemy and apostasy are counterparts. Anti- 
christ, a world-king, sitteth in the temple of God, 
showing himself as God. Antichurch, forfeiting 
her citizenship in heaven, now sitteth in the seat 
of kings. " Simeon and Levi are brethren : in- 
struments of cruelty are in their habitations. O 
my soul ! come not into their secret." " Upon a 



1 For a profound and learned exhibition of this whole subject 
see Hislop's " Two Babylons" London, S. W. Partridge & Co. 



144 ECCE VENIT. 



scarlet-colored beast," — predictive of blood-guilti- 
ness, a foreview which history has amply verified. 
" Grind enough of the red," used to be the ghastly 
phrase of the painter David, one of the French 
revolutionists, as he urged on the bloody work of 
the guillotine. Rome secular has never been 
sparing of the red in carrying out the orders of 
Rome spiritual, whom she has faithfully served 
as public executioner ; she has painted true to 
the prophetic pattern. Hence the "names of 
blasphemy " which cover her. With heaven-de- 
fying self-exaltation she has assumed to sit in the 
judgment-seat of God, and to condemn His saints 
by millions to death, so that whereas Jehovah 
was wont to reprove kings for their sakes, saying, 
"Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no 
harm," these — the Harlot and the Hierarch — 
have "taken counsel together against the Lord 
and against His anointed," to burn them at the 
stake and rend them in the Inquisition. And 
yet, after all, the longing is irresistible, that this 
fallen daughter of God — the harlot Church — 
might be reformed, and like that other Magdalene 
be found bathing the Saviour's feet with her pen- 
itent tears. Nothing in history is more pathetic 
than that yearning of pious Catholics of the Mid- 
dle Ages which found expression in the prophecy 
of a "Papa Angelicas" about to appear, an An- 



THE BRIDE OF ANTICHRIST. H5 

gel-Pope, who should restore the denied Church 
to her primitive purity, and invest her once more 
with the white robes of spiritual chastity. But 
such a conception is as contrary to possibility as 
it is counter to Scripture. That which has been 
the curse of the Church can never be its cure. 
An angelic man in the papal chair, if such an one 
could be found to sit there, would be as abhorrent 
in his office as he might be lovely in his person, 
for papacy is the essence of Antichrist, and as 
such can never help Christ in reforming His 
Church. If any demur at this, and contend that 
with all her errors Rome still holds enough of 
truth to constitute her a true Church, we must 
reply that she cannot be both the bride and the 
harlot ; and to this her most eminent prelates 
assent, compelling us to choose between the two 
alternatives. Cardinal Manning says : " The 
Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan 
or the Kingdom of the Son of God" 1 We solemnly 
deny that she is the latter. Cardinal Newman 
declares : " Either the Church of Rome is the house 
of God or the house of S atari : there is no middle 
ground between them." 2 We solemnly affirm that 
she is not the former. 

1 Lectures on the Fourfold Sovereignty of God, London, 187 1, 
p. 171. 

2 Essays, ii. p. 116. 



146 ECCE VEN1T. 



And yet the cup of the Roman sorceress, let 
us remember, is once more put to the lips of 
Protestants, who are solicited to drink it, and 
forget their estrangement from their " Mother 
Church." How many have been drugged into 
communion, or at least into wanton dalliance, 
with her, we need not say. It is enough to utter 
the warning, that here fellowship is fornication. 
If, by the regenerating and sanctifying grace of 
the Spirit, we belong to the true body of Christ, 
we are bound to meet every overture for commu- 
nion with Rome with the inspired question and 
inspired answer of the apostle : " Shall I, then, 
take the members of Christ, and make them 
members of a harlot ? God forbid " (1 Cor. vi. 

is)- 



V. 

THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 

Antichrist and Antichurch, — these two reign- 
ing together have brought on an anti-millennium, 
the dazzling caricature of that which is promised 
to appear at the second coming of Christ and the 
marriage of the Lamb. An eminent exegete, in 
a recent symposium on the pre-millennial advent, 
replies to those who query whether the present 
may not after all be the long-predicted millen- 
nium, that it might be more correctly called "the 
millennium of Satan." This saying sounds ex- 
tremely harsh and pessimistic, but it has the ad- 
vantage of conforming to Scripture. " The age 
to come" — 6 alo)v fxiXXoiv — has its unmistakable 
characteristics as set forth in Scripture : it will 
be the age of the resurrection of the just (Luke 
xx. 35), with all the glorious triumphs and rewards 
which belong to that consummation ; and it will 
be ushered in by the visible appearing of the 
Lord from heaven (Matt. xiii. 39) ; it will be 
Christ's millennium, during which Satan shall be 
bound and shut up so that he can tempt the na- 
tions no more (Rev. xx. 1-5). 



ECCE VENIT. 



The present age, — 6 vvv alwv, — spanning the 
entire distance from the first to the second advent, 
has also its distinctive characteristics : it is called 

"the "present evil age" (Gal. i. 4) ; Christians are 
exhorted to " live soberly, righteously, and godly 

- in this present age" (Titus ii. 12), to "be not 
conformed to this age " (Rom. xii. 2), and they 
are admonished that Christ "gave Himself for 
our sins, that He might deliver us from this pres- 
ent evil age " (Gal. i. 4). So far from Christ being 
Lord of this age, as He should be were it His 
millennium, we are distinctly told that Satan is 

—-"the god of this age," — 6 #eo? rov aicovos tovtov (2 

Cor. iv. 4). Till this dispensation ends, therefore, 
and the sway of its god is broken, there can be 
no millennium of universal righteousness in which 
Christ shall reign with His saints upon the earth. 
Multitudes will be taken oat of this age to form 
the Ecclesia, the called out, the Bride of Christ, 
to be presented to Him at His coming ; but the 
Church will never so transform the dispensation 
as to turn it into a blissful millennium. The 
clock of the ages runs true to the eternal order, 
and however impatient the Church may be for 
the consummation of all things, she cannot move 
forward the hands of that clock a single hour to 
bring in the Sabbatic rest before the fulness of 
time be come. But this was really what was at- 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 149 

tempted by the Church after her elevation to an 
earthly throne under Constantine. She grasped 
for her glory in the time appointed for her humil- 
iation, and vainly thought to reign in the earth 
while her King is still absent in heaven. 

With the historical school of interpreters we 
find in the twelfth chapter of Revelation a graphic 
portraiture of this critical era. The sun-clothed 
woman figures the Church in her investiture 
with rule and authority under Constantine ; her 
travailing and bringing forth the man child who 
was "to rule all nations with a rod of iron," ex- 
hibits her compassing earthly dominion and sov- 
ereignty, which dominion and sovereignty are, 
however, caught away from the true Church, 
whose portion is for the present the wilderness 
and rejection, and reserved with Jesus Christ on 
the throne where He is " expecting till His foes 
be made His footstool," when the promise shall 
be fulfilled to Him and to His reigning Bride : 
" I will give thee nations for thine inheritance, 
and for thy possession the ends of the earth. 
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, like 
a potter's vessel shalt thou dash them in pieces." 
But in the conflict between paganism and Chris- 
tianity, in which the former is overthrown, as 
symbolized by the casting out of the dragon, the 
deluded Church imagines that her millennial 



T50 ECCE VENIT. 



triumph has arrived, and the cry is heard : " Now 
is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom 
of our God and the power of His Christ'" (Rev. 
xii. 10). Mr. Pember, though not following this 
interpretation of the Apocalypse, has most ad- 
mirably sketched its historical counterpart. He 
says : " When the Christians were relieved from 
persecution by the policy of Constantine, and 
came into honor after having been so long reck- 
oned as the filth of the world and the offscour- 
ing of all things, the cry was straightway raised 
that the kingdom had come. But the result of 
this vain Lo here ! was the introduction of two 
pernicious doctrines, that the kingdom is possi- 
ble without the personal presence of the King, 
and that the Church can become mistress of the 
world during her widowhood and while Satan is 
still reigning prince. Further mischief followed, 
for there being nothing to support such views in 
the New Testament, those who entertained them 
were compelled to have recourse to the Old, and 
to cite from thence the prophecies of Israel's fu- 
ture glory, in order that by a false application of 
them to the Church they might justify the pros- 
perity which had accrued to her through her alli- 
ance with the pagan world." 1 

Satan, who is the god of this age, is an anti- 

1 Antichrist, Babylon, and the Coming Kingdom, p. 145. 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 15 1 

god, and as such he is the great caricaturist of all 
holy persons and things, that he may the more 
effectually delude and destroy. And having seen 
the counter Christ and the counter Church which 
he created for leading men astray, we shall now 
consider how through these two he brought in a 
counter millennium, an astonishing parody of the 
true Sabbatic era and the real kingdom of God 
on earth which are promised in connection with 
Christ's second advent. 

Everything which belongs to that blessed age 
has been, and is still, claimed by the apostate 
Church as already here. Was not Christ to usher 
in the millennium by His personal coming? "On 
thee, most blessed Leo, we have fixed our hopes 
as the Saviour that was to come," — " Salvatorem 
ventiLriun" x So spake an adoring bishop to the 
pope at the fifth Lateran council. In his sover- 
eign vicar, Christ has already appeared and is 
already ruling, says Rome. " In the person of 
Pius IX., Jesus reigns on earth," exclaims Car- 
dinal Manning, "and he must reign till He hath 
put all enemies under His feet ! " 2 

1 Harduin, 1651. 

2 See closing pages of Vatican Council, by Henry Edward, 
Archbishop of Westminster, 187 1. It is an exaltation of the 
pope as "the supreme judge and infallible teacher of men," end- 
ing with a warning to his enemies that " whosoever shall fall on 



152 ECCE VENIT. 



But was it not appointed to the Church to 
suffer with Christ during this dispensation, that 
she might reign with Him in the age to come ? 
" Nay, but now is come salvation and the king- 
dom of our God," replies the harlot bride. Hear 
the Bishop of Medrusium at the fifth Lateran 
council again : " But weep not, daughter of Zion, 
for God hath raised up a Saviour for thee ; the 
Lion of the tribe ofjudah (alluding to Pope Leo), 
the root of David hath come, and shall save thee 
from all thy enemies." 1 A "little flock" wait- 
ing for "the Chief Shepherd" to appear; an es- 
poused bride looking for the Bridegroom's re- 
turn, — such we had supposed to be the character 
of the Church in this present time. But the un- 
faithful spouse has found her Chief Shepherd and 
Bridegroom in the pope. Marcellus, in behalf of 
the Church, speaks thus to Leo X. : "I come to 
thee as my true Lord and Husband, beseeching 
thee to look to it that thy bride may be renewed 
in her beauty ; and see to it that the flock com- 
mitted to thee be nourished with the best and 
spiritual aliment, the fold united in one which is 
now divided, and the sickness healed which has 

this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will 
grind him to powder." It is an amazing exhibition of eloquent 
blasphemy. 

J Harduin, 1687. 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 153 

afflicted the whole world : for thou art our Shep- 
herd, our Physician, our Governor, in fine, a sec- 
ond God on earth." 1 

Christ foretold the condition of his true Church 
— " the children of the bride-chamber " — during 
His absence thus : " But the days will come when 
the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, and 
then shall they fast." The Church of this false 
kingdom, this pseudo-millennium, is thus pictured 
in the Apocalypse : " For she saith in her heart, I 
sit as queen and am no widow, and shall see no 
sorrow" (Rev. xviii. 7). How literally was this 
prediction translated into history when the in- 
fatuated Eusebius, glorying over the triumphs 
of Christianity in his day, exclaimed : " Whereas 
the Church was widowed and desolate, her chil- 
dren have now to exclaim to her : ' Make room ! 
Enlarge thy borders ! the place is too strait for 
us.' The promise is fulfilling in her: 'In right- 
eousness shalt thou be established ; all thy chil- 
dren shall be taught of God, and great shall be 
the peace of thy children.' "- Nay, more : so far 
from fasting, and waiting the time when they 
should sit down with the Lord at His table in 
His kingdom, this historian rejoices that after 
the enthronement of Christianity under Constan- 
tine, when "the bishops sat down at the emper- 

1 Harduin, 1687. 



154 ECCE VENIT. 



or's table, and the rest all around him, it looked 
like the image of the very kingdom of God." * 

Though "a name above every name" is given 
to Immanuel, He still waits for every knee to 
bow to Him ; He still waits for His promised 
throne, "the throne of His father, David." He 
still waits for His royal title, "King of kings 
and Lord of lords," which title, as the Scripture 
shows, belongs only to the day of His glorious 
coming. But not so with Antichrist. " There is 
but one name in the world," he declares, "and 
that is the pope ; he only can use the ornaments 
of empire ; all princes ought to kiss his feet ; he 
alone can nominate and displace bishops, and as- 
semble and dissolve councils. Nobody can judge 
him ; his mere election constitutes him a saint ; 
he has never erred, and never shall err in time to 
come ; he can depose princes, and^ relieve sub- 
jects from their oaths of fidelity." 2 

What wonder that with such assumptions all 
the sublime promises of the millennial glory 
should have been counted as now fulfilled ! So 
it was ; and we read of the ambassadors of the 
Portuguese king bowing down to Pope Leo, and, 
after addressing him as "Supreme Lord of all" 
blasphemously adapting to him the words of 
prophecy : " Thou shalt rule from sea to sea, and 

i V. C. iii. 15. 2 Diet, Papa, Greg. VII. 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 155 

from the river Tiber to the ends of the earth ; 
the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts to 
thee ; yea, all princes shall worship thee, all na- 
tions shall serve thee." 

At no point has the Messianic glory been more 
brilliantly mimicked than here. The profusion 
of offerings which have poured in upon the royal 
priest of Rome from the kings of the earth is 
astonishing to recount. No monarch that ever 
reigned has been the recipient of such sumptuous 
gifts from the princes of this world. And the 
spell of fascination which has ever evoked such 
tributes, although long weakened, seems to be 
again reviving, as indicated by the published list 
of royal presents to the pope on his recent ju- 
bilee. The soft adulation toward Rome, which 
many Protestant clergymen have learned to culti- 
vate during the last half century, is now being 
matched by a renewed subserviency on the part 
of kings. Bishop Cox, one of the compilers of 
the Liturgy of the Anglican Church, writing from 
England to friends on the Continent in 1559, 
while Elizabeth was reigning, said : " We are 
thundering forth in our pulpits, and especially 
before our Queen Elizabeth, that the Roman 
Pontiff is truly Antichrist." Such thunder has 
so far subsided among those employing this lit- 
urgy that now a great company of priests are 



156 ECCE VENIT. 



laboring to bring about organic union with Rome, 
and the present successor to Elizabeth on the 
English throne sends one of the most princely of 
the anniversary gifts to Leo XIII. Luther, after 
his eyes, long holden of superstition, were opened 
to discern the Scriptures, looked at prophecy and 
then at the papacy and exclaimed : " It is most 
manifest, and without any doubt true, that the 
Roman Pontiff, with his whole order and king- 
dom, is the very Antichrist." But instead of 
Luther's mitre of malediction upon the head of 
this usurper of Christ's millennial throne, Ger- 
many now sends, as the tribute of King William 
to the Roman Pontiff, "a jewelled mitre costing 
four thousand dollars." So the masquerade goes 
on before the eyes of men and angels, that the 
unwary may still longer be deceived, and made to 
believe that this is He of whom the Psalmist 
wrote, "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles 
shall bring presents ; . . . yea, all kings shall fall 
down before Him ; all nations shall serve Him." 
Only those can unmask these pretensions who 
read the Scriptures diligently, and find that He 
of whom this is written has this honor, which the 
pope has never known : " For He shall deliver 
the needy when he crieth ; the poor also, and 
him that hath no helper. He shall spare the 
poor and the needy and shall save the souls of 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 157 

the needy ; He shall redeem their souls from 
deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood 
be in His sight" (Psalm lxxii. 12-14). 

Not merely the millennial reign, but the mil- 
lennial splendors, have been snatched by the 
faithless bride. Sober dress becomes the widow- 
hood of the Church ; gaudy attire and jewelled 
fingers convict her of wantoning with earthly 
lovers ; majestic cathedrals, hoarding boundless 
wealth and adorned with costly furniture, imply 
that she has forgotten that here she has no con- 
tinuing city, but that her citizenship is in heaven, 
from whence she looks for her Lord. Cardinal 
Newman, in defending these lavish splendors of 
the papacy, declares that their presence "as little 
proves that the Church is Antichrist as that any 
king's court is Antichrist," and then cites the 
following passages in their justification : " I will 
lay thy stones with fair colors, and thy founda- 
tions with sapphires, and I will make thy windows 
of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy 
borders of precious stones" "The glory of Leb- 
anon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine 
tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of 
my sanctuary" 1 But this is only a piracy of 
Messianic prophecies, all these texts being de- 
scriptive of the age of glory yet to come. To 

1 Essays, ii. 184. 



I5 8 ECCE VENIT. 



quote them in this connection is simply to justify 
our charge that the apostasy has ravished the 
Church millennial to get building materials for 
the Church militant. It should be soon enough 
to walk on golden streets when the New Jerusa- 
lem descends from heaven " as a Bride adorned 
for her Husband ; " but the harlot must needs 
seize the paving-stones of the Holy City to beau- 
tify the streets of " that great city which is spir- 
itually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our 
Lord was crucified" (Rev. xi. 8). 

Let it not be implied that we should be so shut 
up to sackcloth and ashes in the dispensation 
that now is, that we can have no happy glimpses 
of that which is to follow. Most expressively 
does the apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
speak of Christians as those who have " tasted the 
powers of the age to come" (Heb. vi. 5). Fore- 
tastes are graciously permitted, but immediate 
and full appropriation is forbidden. " Be not con- 
formed to this age, but be ye transfigured by the 
renewing of your mind," says the Scripture. The 
transfiguration was a prelibation of the age to 
come ; the cup of glory tasted for a moment by 
our Lord to strengthen Him to drink the cup of 
His vicarious anguish. But it could be only a 
taste as yet, not a complete fruition. Yet Simon 
Peter, whose mistakes are always significant as 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. i59 

foretypical of the permanent errors of his self- 
styled successors, exclaims, "Let us make tJircc 
tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and 
one for Elias, not knowing what lie said" (Matt. 
xvii. 4). As though a momentary visitation of 
the coming glory could now be prolonged into a 
residence ! As though this foretaste of the mil- 
lennium could be made a permanent repast ! In 
his epistles, however, the same apostle three 
times speaks of " the sufferings of Christ and the 
glory that should follow" showing how clearly 
now the succession and characteristics of the ages 
had been revealed to him by the Spirit. We are 
still in the dispensation of Christ's sufferings ; 
and if we have the patience of the waiting bride 
we shall covet no richly adorned dwellings until 
the dispensation of glory shall be ushered in and 
the word of prophecy be fulfilled : " Behold the 
tabernacle of God is with men " (Rev. xxi. 3). 

Not only did the Church preempt the glories 
of the age to come, but also its retributions. And 
in this her presumption exceeded all bounds. 
"Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the 
world ? " asks the apostle. Well might the lowly 
disciple of Christ be startled and staggered at 
such a suggestion ! But it is only an illustration 
of the reversals which will be effected at the set- 
ting up of the kingdom of Christ. They whose 



l6o ECCE VENIT. 



portion it was to stand before the judgment-seat 
of kings will now sit in the judgment-seat with 
the King of kings, "to execute upon them the 
judgment written : This honor have all his saints " 
(Ps. cxlix. 9). But this exercise of judicial honor 
is limited most rigidly to the age to come. " Ye 
which have followed me, in the regeneration" — 
"in the renovation, TraAtyyeveo-ia, being the res- 
toration of this world of ours on the appearance 
of the new aeon" (Lange), — "when the Son of 
man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also 
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
tribes of Israel" (Matt. xix. 28). It is only in 
association with the glorified Lord, present in the 
body to judge men according to the deeds done 
in the body, that this office can be exercised by 
the redeemed. Therefore the Scripture is very 
explicit, and saith : "Judge nothing before the 
time until the Lord come" (1 Cor. iv. 5). 

But see what the Church was left to do so 
soon as she began to glorify herself and live deli- 
ciously, and to commit fornication with the kings 
of the earth. She snatched both the throne and 
the sceptre of God, and began to deal out con- 
demnation to His saints. The centuries of Anti- 
christ's career have constituted one long judg- 
ment day, in which justice has been outraged as 
never before in the history of the ages ; one pro- 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 161 

longed assize, in which popes, and cardinals, and 
bishops have sat in the bench with Chief Justice 
Apollyon, and administered sentence according to 
the statutes of the Prince of Darkness. 

How visibly can the form of this black magis- 
trate be seen behind this mock tribunal ; how 
almost audibly does the chuckle of his infernal 
laughter break forth over this monstrous parody 
of the court of God which he has seduced the 
apostate Church to set up ! With unfathomable 
ingenuity he has opened, before the time, the 
lake of fire to which he is doomed, and made a 
channel for it from the apostate Church ; and thus 
to the astonished " world-rulers of this darkness " 
he has shown a lurid river of the water of death 
proceeding out of the throne of the Beast and 
the Harlot, with millions of Christ's true saints 
writhing in its flames on account of the testi- 
mony which they bore to the faith of Jesus : 
fantastic cruelties burlesquing the calm justice 
of God ; the throne of iniquity supplanting the 
throne of grace, and impanelling the princes of 
this world, who crucified the Lord of Glory, to 
sit in judgment upon His faithful witnesses ! If 
we knew of no other age than this, we might 
verily believe that the Father of Lies had outwit- 
ted the Father of Mercies. It was the contem- 
plation of just what we are describing that is said 



1 62 ECCE VEN1T. 



to have drawn forth from Voltaire the bitter re- 
mark : " If this is the best the Almighty Author 
can do, He deserves to be hissed rather than 
worshiped." No, philosopher! and we may add, 
no, theologian ! This is not the best that God 
can do; this is not Christ's millennium: it is 
Satan's mock millennium. For some inscruta- 
ble reason, the Lord has permitted a demon- 
stration to the principalities and powers in the 
heavenly places of the worst which His arch- 
enemy can do. Wait a little and the Lord shall 
descend from heaven to usher in the real millen- 
nium, the true Sabbatic consummation for which 
the ages have sighed, and for which the whole 
creation, until now, is groaning and travailing 
in pain ; then our Immanuel will show us the 
best He can do. 

It is regretted that our Protestant Christianity, 
in its separation from Rome, never passed en- 
tirely out of the baleful shadow of this pseudo- 
millennium. For many to this day confound the 
Church with the kingdom, and apply the prom- 
ises of the glory of the age to come to the 
present triumphs of the gospel. God forbid that 
in the slightest degree we should undervalue the 
missionary and evangelical victories which have 
so signally marked this century ; but if we are 
tempted to predict the speedy conquest of the 



THE MOCK MILLENNIUM. 163 

whole world to Christ through these successes, 
we need to be admonished to speak according to 
the Word. The present is the dispensation of 
election ; the declared purpose of preaching the 
gospel to the Gentiles in this age is, " to take out 
of then? a people for His name" (Acts xv. 14), 
and it is a premature grasping of the kingdom to 
apply to this period those glorious predictions of 
universal righteousness in the age to come, with 
which Scripture abounds. If it be said that 
this conception of preaching the gospel "for a 
witness," and "to gather out," is a narrow and 
disheartening one, we reply that it is in harmony 
with the universal testimony of Scripture ; and 
we shall be far safer and more successful to work 
according to God's schedule of the ages than 
according to man's time-table. Indeed, if we 
would be intelligent laborers for Christ, we must 
not fail to discriminate rigidly between the sphere 
of the militant Church and the sphere of the 
millennial Church. There is an ancient saying 
of great significance : " Distinguite tempora et 
concordat? mt scriptures:" "Distinguish the pe- 
riods and the Scriptures will harmonize." Fail- 
ure at this point has worked vast misconcep- 
tion. The theories of Christ's paro??sia having 
already occurred, of the resurrection already ac- 
complished, and of judgment already going on 



1 64 ECCE VENIT. 



in the unseen world, all rest upon that confusion 
of the dispensations which makes " the world to 
come" signify the present time or the disem- 
bodied state. Here, again, is a premature snatch- 
ing of the coming glory; and to effect it the 
ages have been telescoped, and their distinguish- 
ing events huddled together in one promiscuous 
jumble. The result is, prophecy without perspec- 
tive ; dispensations without distances intervening ; 
the divine vision of things to come blended with 
the present scene ; and the whole turned into a 
Chinese picture, with all the objects in the fore- 
ground. 

Cross -bearing, patient endurance, diligent ser- 
vice, — this is our present calling, while we ever 
pray our absent Lord " that it may please Thee 
shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect 
and to hasten Thy kingdom." Meanwhile we 
are "to live soberly, righteously, and godly in 
this present age" if by any means we may be 
" counted worthy to obtain that age and the res- 
urrection from the dead." 



VI. 

THE ECLIPSE OF EIOPE. 

It would be inevitable that, in the condition 
of things described in the previous chapter, the 
primitive hope of Christ's second coming in glory 
should pass into utter eclipse. If the Messianic 
reign had begun, and the kingdom had really 
been set up, why should Christians longer look 
for the Lord from heaven to establish His millen- 
nial throne ? The cry, " Behold the kingdom ! " 
now filled all mouths ; the lavish splendors of the 
papal court dazzled all eyes ; and there was little 
occasion for that other cry to be longer sounded, 
— Behold, He cometh!" — the cry which was 
first uttered by that " brother and companion in 
tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of 
Jesus Christ," and which was continued for two 
hundred years by his faithful fellow - sufferers. 
So it was that Satan's counterfeit drove the gen- 
uine coin out of circulation, till the early advent 
hope of the Church passed into almost complete 
oblivion. 

Harnack, in his masterly article on the Millen- 
nium, shows that Augustine was the first theolo- 
gian " to grasp and elaborate the idea that the 



166 ECCE VENIT. 



Church is the kingdom of Christ and the city of 
God ; . . . that the millennial kingdom had com- 
menced with the appearing of Christ, and was, 
therefore, an accomplished fact." And he adds 
that, "by this doctrine of Augustine's, the old 
millenarianism, though not completely extirpated, 
was at least banished from the realm of the dog- 
matic 1 

Of course, as the papacy developed more and 
more subsequent to Augustine's day, more and 
more was the millennial hope of the Church ob- 
scured. For that hope stands in direct antago- 
nism to every principle of the Hierarchy. As a 
learned writer has said : " It never pleased, but 
always gave offense to, the Church of Rome, be- 
cause it did not suit that scheme of Christianity 
which they have drawn. The Apocalypse of John 
supposed the true Church under hardships and 
persecutions ; but the Church of Rome, suppos- 
ing Christ reigns already by His vicar the pope, 
hath been in prosperity and greatness, and the 
commanding Church in Christendom for a long 



1 The article, " Millennium," by Prof. Adolph Harnack, of 
Berlin, to which we constantly refer in this chapter, is in the last 
edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is the ablest exhibi- 
tion, in brief compass, of the primitive and historical claims of 
pre-millenarianism, and of the causes of the Church's decline 
therefrom, with which we are acquainted. 



THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 167 

time. This has made the Church of Rome al- 
ways have an ill eye upon this doctrine, because 
it seemed to have an ill eye upon her; and, as 
she grew in splendor and greatness, she eclipsed 
and obscured it more and more, so that it would 
have been lost out of the world as an obsolete 
error if it had not been revived by some at the 
Reformation." 1 

It is most striking to observe how, as the apos- 
tasy went on, not only the teaching on this sub- 
ject ceased, but the symbols, and worship, and 
ordinances of the Church became so changed as 
to silence their testimony to Christ's second com- 
ing, and to throw that doctrine into eclipse. 

The seduction of the Church from its primitive 
simplicity was accomplished mainly by these two 
influences : pagan philosophy corrupting her doc- 
trine, and pagan ceremonies corrupting her wor- 
ship. Both of these were inherently hostile to 
the chaste and artless Chiliasm of the apostolic 
age. The primitive hope was intolerable to ra- 
tional theology, because it could not be surveyed 
and mapped out upon its logic charts. Hence, 
no sooner had philosophy been installed in the 
apostle's chair than it began to wage war upon 
the apostle's doctrine. 

As the Apocalypse was regarded as the strong- 

1 Thomas Burnet, 163 5-1 700. 



1 68 ECCE VENIT. 



hold of millenarianism, determined siege was 
made against this book : its authority was ques- 
tioned, its value discounted, till it was finally 
driven from the canon ; and, so far as the Greek 
Church was concerned, it was denied a place in 
Holy Scripture for centuries, and consequently 
" Chiliasm remained in its grave." 1 

Nor was this the worst injury emanating from 
this source. Pagan philosophy infused its own 
notions of a future life into ecclesiastical theol- 
ogy. It deftly substituted the Platonic doctrine 
of the immortality of the soul for the Christian 
doctrine of the resurrection of the body. In har- 
mony with this change came in the notion of 
judgment being administered immediately after 
death in the disembodied state, instead of being 
reserved till the coming: of the Lord and the 

o 

raising of the dead, — a conception as charac- 
teristic of all heathen religions as it is foreign 



1 Professor Harnack, avowing that millenarianism "was in 
former times associated — to all appearance inseparably associ- 
ated — with the gospel itself," adds that " it can only exist along 
with the unsophisticated faith of the early Christians ; " that " the 
millenarians of the ancient Church, just because they were mil- 
lenarians, despised dogmatic in the sense of philosophic theol- 
ogy." Professor Van Oosterzee also observes that there is an 
irreconcilable " inner discrepancy between the modern theolog- 
ical philosophy and the prophetic and apostolical Scriptures." 
— Person and Work of the Redeemer, p. 450. 



THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 169 

to the teaching of both the Old Testament and 
the New. This eschatology of the under-world, 
which even to this day so deeply colors our the- 
ology, could not fail to make strongly against 
the original advent faith of the Church. For it 
changed the up-look of primitive Christianity to 
the down-look of pagan mythology, by making 
death the object of consideration instead of the 
coming of Christ. This was the master-stroke of 
Satanic art, — the substitution of death for life, 
of mortality for resurrection, in the hopes of the 
Church. It is a perversion so radical and subtle 
that to this day many Christians are blinded by 
it, so that they imagine that their dying means 
the same thing as Christ's coming. Twin coun- 
terfeits of paganism are these two ; ritualism cor- 
rupting the liturgy of the Church with demon- 
worship, and Platonism corrupting the eschatol- 
ogy of the Church with death-worship. Instead 
of the expectation being fixed upon Christ's ad- 
vent, it became fixed upon the soul's exit ; death 
was glorified into a good angel ; and thus mor- 
tality, Satan's masterpiece, supplanted resurrec- 
tion, Christ's masterpiece, and the " Terrible 
Captain Sepulchre and his Standard-bearer Cor- 
ruption " were crowned and throned in the place 
of the Coming Christ, who is " the Resurrection 
and the Life." In the gospel, death is made 



170 ECCE VENIT. 



neither the terminus ad quern nor the terminus a 
quo ; that towards which we look for the consum- 
mation of our hopes, or from which we enter upon 
our complete sanctification and final perfection. 
" Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed 
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of 
life," is the inspired confession of the believer. 
And nothing will so completely quench the can- 
dle of our true hope as the opposite idea that 
death is the supreme deliverer to be waited for. 

The ceremonies which gradually grew up in 
the Church tended to the same result. For as 
worship more and more took the place of the 
Word in the Christian assembly, the contem- 
plation was withdrawn from the glories of the 
age to come. Purgatory was substituted for 
Paradise ; masses for the disembodied souls in 
the former supplanted scriptural exhortations to 
the attainment of the rewards and glories of the. 
latter. The lamp of prophecy, which the Lord 
left in the hands of his waiting Bride, had at last 
been exchanged for the tapers of heathenism. 
"We almost see the ceremonial of the Gentiles 
introduced into the Church under pretense of re- 
ligion," exclaims Jerome, "piles of candles lighted 
while yet the sun is shining. Great honor do 
such persons render to the blessed martyrs, think- 
ing with miserable tapers to illuminate those 



THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 171 

whom the Lamb in the midst of the throne shines 
upon with the splendor of His majesty." x It will 
be seen from this saying which way the candle 
of paganism throws its beams, as compared with 
the true light which Christ gave to His Church. 
"We have also a more sure word of prophecy," 
writes Peter, "whereunto ye do well that ye take 
heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, 
until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your 
hearts." Here is the lamp which amid earth's 
night was to shed its rays far on towards the 
coming King, to meet and mingle with the light 
of His returning glory, " until the day break and 
the shadows flee away." What a blow was it to 
the bridal hopes of the Church when ceremony 
took the place of scriptural preaching and expo- 
sition in the assemblies of Christians ! 

Observe the same suppression of primitive 
.teaching in the Christian ordinances. Baptism, 
as instituted by our Lord, bore graphic witness 
to the first resurrection, and hence at every ad- 
ministration it uttered a visible " Behold he com- 
eth ! " Hear the apostolic exposition of this 
ordinance : " Know ye not that so many of us as 
were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized 
into His death ? Therefore we are buried with 
Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ 

1 Adv. Vigilantium, c. ii. 



172 ECCE VENIT. 



was raised up from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of 
life (Rom. vi. 4) : a text which shows, says Canon 
Westcott, that the very entrance of the primitive 
Christians into the Church "was apprehended 
under the form of a resurrection." But as the 
rite became mutilated in the Western Church, 
the tongue with which it once proclaimed our 
advent hope was plucked out, and its testimony 
silenced, so that, as now widely practiced, the 
ordinance gives no suggestion of resurrection. 1 

The Lord's Supper, also, was not only robbed 
of its millennial witness, but made to express a 
completely contrary idea. For gradually the doc- 
trine of "the real presence" became associated 
with the communion. Originally the eucharist 

1 Dean Stanley declares that the change from the primitive 
form of immersion to sprinkling has " set aside the larger part 
of the apostolic language regarding baptism, and altered the very 
meaning thereof'' [Essay on Baptism). Dean Goulburn, regret- 
ting that immersion, which is the rule of his church, has been 
discontinued, says that, were it still practiced, '" The water clos- 
ing over the entire person would then preach of the grave which 
yawns for every child of Adam, and which one day will engu'f 
us all in its drear abyss. But that abyss will be the womb and 
seed-plot of a new life. Animation having been for one instant 
suspended beneath the water, — a type this of the interruption of 
man's energies by death, — the body is lifted up again into the 
air by way of expressing emblematically the new birth of resur- 
rection." — Bampton Lechtres, 1850, Oxford Edition, p. 18. 



THE ECLIPSE OF HOPE. 173 

proclaimed the real absence of the Lord. — " This 
do in remembrance of Me" was its voice. We do 
not remember a present friend, but one who is 
absent. " For as often as ye eat this bread and 
drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death until 
He come." — We do not wait the coming of one 
who is with us, but of one who is away from us. 
The Jews to this day keep a vacant seat for Eli- 
jah at their paschal meal, remembering the word 
of the Lord, "Behold I will send you Elijah the 
prophet before the coming of the great and dread- 
ful day of the Lord," thus making the feast an- 
ticipative as well as commemorative. And while 
the Bridegroom tarries, there is ever a vacant seat 
at the Lord's table, left empty for the Lord Him- 
self, who distinctly said at the beginning that He 
would not henceforth participate in the cup with 
His disciples till He should drink it new with 
them in the Father's kingdom. Of course, in the 
person of the unseen Holy Spirit, Christ is ever 
with His Church. But visibly and corporeally 
He is not present ; and the communion was or- 
dained to proclaim this fact through all the in- 
terim from His departure to His return. Alas ! 
it was a sad blow to the Church's advent hope 
when these two sacramental witnesses to our 
Lord's return were brought into a conspiracy of 
silence concerning that blessed event, while one 



174 ECCE VENIT. 



of them was made to bear false testimony, pro- 
claiming a literal presence of the Lord in body 
and blood, thus hushing into silence the " until 
He come" which the ordinance was originally 
commissioned to utter. 

Thus was Christ's prophecy literally fulfilled : 
" While the Bridegroom tarried they all slumbered 
and slept" And it was fulfilled exactly as the 
language signifies. For the word translated 
" slumbered " is vvard^w, to nod. At first there 
were faithful witnesses, such as Nepos, Methodius, 
Apollinaris, and Lactantius, who sought to rouse 
the lethargic Church, but there was only a mo- 
mentary awakening, followed by a deeper relapse 
into slumber. The Church drowsed and nodded, 
then fell into a profound sleep ; and during the 
long period of the Dark Ages the advent faith dis- 
appeared. Not utterly, indeed, for in Harnack's 
expressive phrase, " It still lived on in the lower 
strata of Christian society ; and in certain under- 
currents of tradition it was transmitted from 
century to century." That is, while the harlot 
Church, including the great body of nominal 
Christians, became completely dead to this truth, 
the true Bride, the woman in the wilderness, 
obscure, despised, and persecuted, still cherished 
it in secret. Hence all through the ages we find 
glimmering rays from the Virgin's lamp falling 



THE ECLIPSE OE HOPE. 175 

here and there in the surrounding darkness. The 
Waldensian candlestick, with its motto, " Lux in 
tenebris" threw stray beams of advent light into 
the encircling gloom. Read the following from 
the Noble Lesson, a famous treatise originating 
in that body about a. d. 1200 : " O brethren, hear 
a noble lesson : we ought often to watch and be 
in prayer ; for we see that this world is near its 
fall. We ought to be very careful to do good 
works, for we see that the end of the world is 
approaching." 

That other band of sackcloth witnesses, the 
Paulicians, gave similar testimony. For while 
the great body of Christendom had settled down 
into a contented earthly citizenship, these hunted 
and hated Protestants saluted each other as 
crvveKSrjfxoc, — " Fellow-exiles ; " and while the blind 
virgin - worshipers adored the Mother of God, 
these spoke of the Jerusalem above, the Mother 
of us all, as that from whence Christ, the " Fore- 
runner, having for us entered," would surely 
come again. Even from within the Catholic 
communion came stray testimonies, like that of 
Bernard of Cluny in the twelfth century : — 

" The world is very evil. 

The times are waxing late. 
Be sober and keep vigil. 
The Judge is at the gate." 



176 ECCE V EN-IT. 



But these were only broken rays, feeble heart- 
reflections from those who had kept sight of 
"The Bright and Morning Star," in the mid- 
night of the Church's apostasy. We do not for- 
get that there were powerful outbreaks of expec- 
tation of Christ's return, like that which marked 
the dawn of the thousandth year of the Christian 
era. But the conception which characterized 
these was that of a Judge coming in terror, not 
of a Bridegroom returning to bring joy to his 
waiting Bride. The patience of hope revived 
only in a panic of fear. The forebodings of this 
period having passed, Christendom relapsed once 
more into profound slumber concerning her prirrh 
itive hope, — a slumber disturbed only here and 
there by the dreams of those whom she counted 
visionaries and fanatics. So it continued till the 
dawn of the Reformation. 



PART III. 
FULFILLED. 



" With the Lord's second advent will begin the real reign of 
God upon earth — a kingdom of righteousness, holiness, and peace, 
consisting of saints, with exemption from the Evil One and his 
enticements, and under a mighty influence of celestial power. It 
is called the reign of a thousand years. Modern times have again 
paid attention to this hcttine of the Millet nium, thus coinciding 
with the ancient Fathers. It is resounding, as it were, a new call : 
' The Lo7'd cometh ! ' Among believers, this doctrine, far removed 
from carnal conceptions, should no more be considered an error." 
— John Frederick Meyer. 



HOPE REVIVED. 

The Reformation was virtually a republication 
of the gospel ; it was the Christian era begin- 
ning anew, and repeating in substance the primi- 
tive features of the religion of Jesus. 

The historical school of interpreters have found 
in the tenth chapter of Revelation a graphic and 
powerful prefigurement of this event : " And I 
saw another mighty angel come down from heaven 
clothed with a cloud ; and a rainbow was upon 
his head, and his face was as it were the sun, 
and his feet as pillars of fire ; and he had in his 
hand a little book open." From the description 
of this mighty angel we can hardly fail to iden- 
tify him with the glorified Christ, the Angel of 
the Covenant, as already pictured in this book 
(i. 13-16). There is the same countenance "as 
of the sun shining in his strength," the same 
mighty voice, and the same burning feet. The 
conception seems to be that of Christ appear- 
ing in history to reaffirm His testament. But 
that which identifies this representation most 
certainly to our mind is its likeness to a similar 
scene in the Old Testament, a point hitherto 



180 ECCE VENIT. 



overlooked, so far as we are aware. For the keys 
to the Revelation are generally found in the Bible 
itself, events of its history being so paralleled or 
reproduced in the Apocalyptic imagery as to ren- 
der the meaning apparent. 

Now the scene of the second giving of the law, 
as described in Exodus, seems to be substantially 
rehearsed in this chapter of the Apocalypse in 
order to figure the second giving of the gospel. 
The circumstances were identical. As the tables 
of the law had been destroyed on account of the 
idolatry of Israel, so now the statutes of the gos- 
pel had been annulled by the gross idolatry of the 
papacy. But, God having commanded Moses to 
hew two tables of stone, like unto the first that 
were broken, the servant of God stands upon 
Mount Sinai holding the tables in his hand. 
"And the Lord descended in the cloud" (Ex. 
xxxiv. 5). So in the second giving of the gos- 
pel we behold " a mighty angel come down from 
heaven clothed with a cloud." There is the same 
" proclaiming " with a loud voice in either in- 
stance. "The pillars of fire" to which the an- 
gel's feet are likened complete the identification, 
so that we have the pillar and the cloud in both 
scenes. "Behold I make a covenant before all 
thy people," says Jehovah on the mountain-top. 
In the Apocalypse this renewed covenant is 



HOPE REVIVED. 



graphically symbolized by the bow overarching 
the angel : "And the rainbow was tipon his head." 
Moses, with the two tables of testimony in his 
hand received anew from Jehovah, and the one 
addressed in the Apocalypse with " the little book 
open" received from the hand of the angel, — this 
completes the parallel. And if we may conclude, 
with many commentators, that the " little book 
open " is the gospel restored after its long sup- 
pression by the idolatrous Church, then the veri- 
similitude is most striking between the resto- 
ration of the law and the restoration of the 
gospel. 

How such truths as justification by faith blazed 
out anew from the reopened Testament at the 
Reformation is well known ; and the long-lost 
doctrine of Christ's glorious appearing as the 
hope of the Church could not fail in like manner 
to be revived so soon as the Scriptures were un- 
chained. We do not say that primitive Chiliasm 
was restored in its entireness to the creed of 
the Reformed Church. Attention was so much 
occupied with the saving truths of the gospel 
that its sanctifying hopes were not duly empha- 
sized. Beside there were gross and repulsive 
caricatures of ancient millenarianism appearing 
here and there to create revulsion from the true. 
Satan's tares were not only sown in Christ's 



ECCE VENIT. 



newly-ploughed field, but they were so rank and 
forward in their growth as to forestall attention, 
and prevent the real wheat from being recognized 
when it should appear. But this fact is very 
noticeable, that, as the features of Antichrist be- 
gan to be descried in the papacy by the Re- 
formers, the mind inevitably went forward to 
Him who was to destroy this Man of Sin "by 
the brightness of His coming." So ripe w T as the 
apostasy, so near seemed the epiphany ; so devel- 
oped was Antichrist, so imminent seemed the 
coming of Christ. Clear and intelligent were the 
voices that began to break forth from among 
the disenthralled subjects of the pontiff. " The 
world, without doubt, — this I do believe, and 
therefore say it, — draws to a close. Let us, 
with John, the servant of God, say in our hearts 
to our Saviour Christ : Come, Lord Jesus, 
come." 1 So spoke Ridley in 1554; and his 
fellow-martyr for the truth, Cranmer, said like- 
wise : "We ask that His kingdom come, for that 
as yet we see not all things put under Jesus' 
Christ. . . . As yet Antichrist is not slain. 
Whence it is, we desire and pray, that at length 
it may come to pass and be fulfilled ; and that 
Christ alone may reign with His saints, accord- 
ing to the divine promise, and live and have 

1 Lamentation for the Change of Religion. 



HOPE REVIVED. 1 83 

dominion in the world according to the decrees 
of the Holy Gospel, and not according to the 
traditions and laws of men, and the will of the 
tyrants of this world." 1 And Hugh Latimer 
spoke to the same intent : " Let us therefore have 
a desire that this day may come quickly ; let us 
hasten God forward ; let us cry unto Him day 
and night, * Most merciful Father, Thy kingdom 
come.' St. Paul says: 'The Lord will not come 
till the swerving from the faith cometh ' (2 Thess. 
ii. 3), which thing is already done and past. 
Antichrist is already known throughout all the 
world : wherefore the day is not far off. Let us 
observe, for it will one day fall on our heads." 2 

These are testimonies which gleam with the 
light of martyr-fires already kindling upon their 
confessors, — fires which were sent to purify that 
hope which is itself the purifier of the saints. 
As an old coin stamped with the image of some 
forgotten king, but so worn by use that the royal 
countenance has disappeared, yet being subjected 
to a powerful heat gives back the obliterated face 
again to the beholder, so the image and super- 
scription of the coming Christ, our advent Re- 
deemer, long effaced from the gospel by idolatry 
and vain philosophy, reemerged in the martyr-fires 

1 Catechism of Edward VI., fJSS- 

2 Sermons on the Lord's Prayer, 



184 ECCE VENIT. 



of the Reformation ; and once more men read 
and repeated the words thereon : " Behold, I 
come quickly." 

As to the other reformers, Martensen, the emi- 
nent Danish theologian, has expressed his regret 
that when Luther and his coadjutors, under God, 
set their hands to recover the primitive faith, 
they should not have restored apostolic mille- 
narianism, and given it a place in the reformed 
creed. But Luther did not reject it, though this 
has been alleged. " The Jewish opinions " so 
pointedly condemned in the Augsburg Confession, 
which he assisted in drafting, really had reference 
to the notion of a millennium in the flesh, or the 
setting up of the kingdom of God in this present 
evil age and before the advent. Some extreme 
Anabaptists had exhibited this travesty of a 
sacred truth, and in carrying out the idea had 
stirred up sedition and brought scandal upon the 
Protestant movement. At these the disavowal 
was aimed. 1 The article in question really con- 
demns the post-millenarianism now so greatly 
in vogue among us. It reads : " They condemn 

1 "And as at the time, among other calumnies, this blame was 
also cast upon us, as if the gospel taught and encouraged rebel- 
lion and undutifulness toward authorities, we had, by these words 
of the Confession, to free ourselves of such imputations." — Me- 
hincthott's Works, vol. xxvi., p. 366. 



HOPE REVIVED. 185 

others also, which spread abroad Jewish opinions, 
that before the resurrection of the dead, the godly 
shall get the sovereignty in the world, and the 
wicked be brought under in every place." That 
the godly will not get the sovereignty of the 
world, and subdue the wicked before the resur- 
rection at Christ's coming, is what true Chiliasm 
has always avowed. 

How strongly the principal reformers empha- 
sized this view, as against the notion of world- 
conversion and regeneration before the advent, 
now so widely accepted among religious teach- 
ers, will appear from two or three quotations. 
"Some say," writes Luther, "that before the 
latter day the whole world shall become Chris- 
tians. This is a falsehood forged by Satan that 
he might darken sound doctrine. Beware, there- 
fore, of this delusion." * And John Knox, the 
intrepid Scotch reformer, likewise declares : " To 
reform the whole earth, which never was, nor 
yet shall be, till that righteous King and Judge 
appear for the restoration of all things." 2 Of the 
unfitness of the conception of the kingdom ap- 
pearing before the King, of the triumph of the 
saints before the triumph of the Saviour, John 
Calvin thus speaks : " Christ is our Head, whose 
kingdom and glory have not yet appeared. If 

1 Com. on Jo/m,x, n-16. 2 Treatise on Fasting, 



86 ECCE VENIT. 



the members were to go before the Head, the 
order of things would be inverted and preposter- 
ous ; but we shall follow our Prince then when 
He shall come in the glory of His Father and sit 
upon the throne of His majesty." 1 These selec- 
tions sufficiently indicate how strongly the nega- 
tive aspects of Chiliasm were maintained by the 
Reformers. When we hear their positive avow- 
als of the certainty and imminence of the Lord's 
second advent, their position becomes even more 
clearly defined. Hear Knox in his letter to the 
faithful in London, in 1554 : " Has not the Lord 
Jesus, in spite of Satan's malice, carried up our 
flesh into heaven ? And shall He not return ? 
We know that He shall return, and that with ex- 
pedition." Luther in his weariness of the Refor- 
mation battle, cries out affectingly : " There is no 
more help or counsel upon earth except in the 
last day. I hope, too, that it will not be much 
longer before it comes ; I believe that the gospel 
will become so despised that the last day cannot 
be far off, not over a hundred years. God's Word 
will again wax less and fall off, and great dark- 
ness will come for want of true and faithful min- 
isters of the Word. Then will the whole world 
run wild, sensual, and live in all security without 
reflecting. Then shall the voice come and sound, 



Psychopannychia } p. 551 



HOPE REVIVED. 187 

'Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,' for God will 
not be able longer to endure it." 1 

If the excesses of certain Anabaptists preju- 
diced Luther and his associates so that they did 
not give millenarianism that recognition in the 
reformed theology which it deserved, the fidelity 
of others of this sect — "many of whom," says 
Harnack, "need not shun comparison with the 
Christians of the apostolic and post -apostolic 
ages " — had much to do with keeping it alive in 
Christendom. This, Harnack distinctly recog- 
nizes, declaring that, while the Reformers fol- 
lowed too much the teachings on this subject 
which had prevailed in the Catholic Church since 
the time of Augustine, "millenarianism neverthe- 
less found its way, with the help of Apocalyptic 
mysticism and Anabaptist influences, into the 
churches of the Reformation, chiefly among the 
reformed sects, but afterwards also into the Lu- 
theran Church." Of these reformed sects we can 
only speak briefly. The lineal descendants of the 
Anabaptists — John Bunyan's spiritual kinsmen 
and fellow - sufferers in England — presented a 
confession to Charles II. which embodies "the 
purest early Patristic millenarian doctrine of any 
creed in modern times." There were apostolic 
names among the more than twenty thousand 

J Table Talk, 



1 88 ECCE VENIT. 



Baptists who, in giving their adhesion to this 
document, declare : " We are not only resolved to 
suffer persecution to the loss of our goods, but 
also life itself, rather than decline from the same." 
The confession contains a touching avowal of the 
pilgrim condition of Christ's disciples until His 
advent, on which event their hopes are placed : 
" Though now, alas ! many men be scarce content 
that the saints should have so much as a being 
among them, but when Christ shall appear, then 
shall be their day : then shall be given them power 
over the natio?ts to rule them with a rod of iron ; 
then shall they receive a crown of life which no 
man taketh from them." If the Westminster Con- 
fession was less explicit so far as giving any formal 
expression of Chiliasm, it at least sets the hope 
of our Lord's ever imminent return into conspic- 
uous prominence, declaring : " Christ will have 
that day unknown to men, that they may shake 
off all carnal security and be always watchful, 
because they know not at what hour the Lord 
will come." With the Evangelical party in the 
Episcopal Church this has been so strong a con- 
viction and article of faith as to render them its 
most conspicuous champions in modern times. 

Among the fathers of Congregationalism, es- 
pecially those who planted the gospel in Amer- 
ica, the ancient doctrine was strongly held and 



HOPE REVIVED. 189 

ardently preached. New England theology was 
in the beginning as deeply colored with millena- 
rian hopes as primitive Christianity itself. The 
Mathers, who preached in the city in which we 
write, and whose sepulchres are with us to this 
day, were bold confessors of apostolic Chiliasm ; 
and considering how strongly other eminent men 
of their day echoed their sentiments, Davenport, 
Spaulding, and Walley, we must conclude that 
this precious faith had found another blooming 
period in connection with this eventful planting 
of the gospel. But, alas ! as in the beginning 
this doctrine was wrecked on the philosophy of 
Augustine, so now it disappeared before the 
mighty logic of Jonathan Edwards. For, in his 
" History of Redemption," though he speaks 
clearly of the literal advent and resurrection, the 
millennial hope of God's Church is so spiritual- 
ized and attenuated as to be utterly unrecogniz- 
able ; and from his day the Church, of which he 
was so eminent a light, has drifted more and more 
toward that post-millenarianism which may have 
had not a little influence in producing the baleful 
fruits of eschatology now ripening among us. 

All that we can give in our brief space is only 
the merest outline of the renaissance of millena- 
rianism. The clearest traces of the revived hope 
of the Church, however, appear in the noble line 



19° ECCE VENIT. 



of Apocalyptic expositors — a true apostolic suc- 
cession — beginning with Joseph Mede, born in 
the same half century in which Luther died, 
and coming down to Elliott in our own century. 
Their way is like the path of the just that shin- 
eth more and more unto the perfect day ; in their 
hands the prophet's lamp glows with ever-bright- 
ening beam towards the millennial dawn. In- 
deed, whenever men have turned from dogmatics 
to Scripture, a revival of millennial views has 
been inevitable. So it was that when the great 
evangelical exegete Bengel appeared, and began 
to unchain the Word of God and allow it to speak 
for itself, such an impulse was given to advent 
truth that, according to Hengstenberg, " Chiliasm 
obtained an almost universal diffusion through 
the Church." 1 And yet, as ever, there were 
many adversaries. Of Bengel, Dorner says : " His 
works were the first cock -crowing of the new 
kind of exegesis the Church so greatly needed. ,, 
But before the cock - crowing was fairly heard, 
the advent faith was thrice denied by the incred- 
ulous question : " Where is the sign of His com- 






1 " To whom else do we owe it that the Orthodox Church of 
the present time does not brand the Chiliastic view of the last 
times as a heterodoxy, as is done in almost all the manuals of 
dogmatics, so that there is scarcely a believing Christian now 
who does not take this view ? " — Delitzsch. 






HOPE REVIVED. 191 

ing?" For in the same century with Bengel 
wrote Whity the Arian, the author of that " New 
Hypothesis " in eschatology called post - millen- 
nialism, which now rules so largely in the theo- 
logical schools of this country, — a spiritualizing 
system whose ultimate tendency has been to ob- 
scure the doctrine of a literal advent, a literal 
resurrection, and a literal kingdom, and to put far 
off the day of the Lord. Just as Judaizing con- 
ceptions brought the doctrine of the millennium 
into disrepute in the early ages by carnalizing it, 
so this interpretation has tended to discount it in 
our times by spiritualizing it. Once more, how- 
ever, has come a reaction towards the ancient 
teaching. For in our own generation has been 
witnessed such a flaming-up of the torch of prim- 
itive adventism as has not been known since the 
first century. The learned exegete and the hum- 
ble Bible - reader — the one searching with the 
critical eye of scholarship, and the other with the 
single eye of faith — have reached the same con- 
clusion, and joined to sound out together the cry, 
"Behold, He cometh ! " What eminent exposi- 
tors are to-day standing forth to give their bold 
adhesion to this much-maligned doctrine ! What 
eloquent preachers have risen up to sound out 
the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!" 
What ardent evangelists are going through the 



192 ECCE VENIT. 



land bearing in their hands the relighted lamp of 
prophecy, opening and alleging that " this same 
Jesus, who was received up into heaven, shall so 
come in like manner as He went up ! " What 
gifted poets have tuned their lyres to this exalted 
theme, so that now, " with their garlands and 
singing - robes about them," they are heralding 
with Milton, their choir-leader, "the eternal and 
shortly expected King 1 ' " What crowded assem- 
blies are gathering for conference and mutual 
encouragement concerning this lofty theme ! All 
these things constitute an undisputed sign of that 
greater sign, " the sign of the Son of man in 
heaven," coming to heed at last the sigh of 
groaning and travailing creation, to renew the 
face of the earth, that it may be to the Lord 
"for a name, for an everlasting sign, that shall 
not be cut off." 



II. 

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 

" Eudia ! " " Fair weather ! " Such is the excla- 
mation which our Lord puts into the mouth of the 
watchers of the evening-red upon the western 
horizon ; and then He chides His hearers that, 
discerning the face of the sky, they cannot dis- 
cern the signs of the times (Matt. xvi. 2, 3). After 
the long, wild storm of the ages, the " hail and 
fire mingled with blood " devastating the earth, is 
it strange that we should watch eagerly for the 
tokens of the fair day of God which the coming 
of the Son of man shall usher in ? Some say 
that signs are not for the Church, since she is 
heavenly, and has her home on high. But just 
for that reason they are for the Church, for the 
"strangers and pilgrims on the earth" who " de- 
sire a better country, even a heavenly." 

The budding fig-tree is certainly a token for 
us, — a Jewish sign for the Christian Church ; 
and if, as we believe, this phenomenon is now 
appearing, it should be to the waiting Bride of 
Immanuel as the song of her Beloved, " Rise up, 
my love, my fair one, and come away : for, lo ! the 
winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the 



94 ECCE VENIT. 



"flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the 
singing of birds is come, and the voice of the 
turtle is heard in the land. The fig tree putteth 
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender 
grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair 
one, and come away." The cursing of the fig 
tree we believe, with many expositors, to be an 
enacted parable. If our Lord had pointed to the 
green and spreading branches and said, " This is 
Israel," His meaning had hardly been plainer. 
" Leaves only," — abundant professions, luxuriant 
outward religious display, — such was the char- 
acter of the Hebrew Church as it appeared to the 
Saviour's eyes. "And he said unto it, Let no 
fruit grow on thee henceforward forever ; and 
presently the fig tree withered away " (Matt. 
xxi. 19). Yet not forever. Why not translate 
the words literally, ek rbv aiuva, "for the age " ? 
Then, in miniature symbol, we have the magni- 
fied fact to which the centuries have been bear- 
ing solemn witness, namely, that for the entire 
age, for the whole dispensation following their 
rejection of Christ, the Jewish people would be 
dry, and unfruitful, and dead. 

But subsequently we hear our Lord saying : 
" Now from the fig tree learn her parable ; while 
her branch is now become tender and putteth 
forth leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh." 



FORE GLEAMS OF THE DAY. 195 

" As in its judicial unfruitfulness it emblematized 
the Jewish people, so here the putting forth of 
the fig tree from its winter dryness symbolizes 
the future reviviscence of that race which the Lord 
declares shall not pass away till all be fulfilled " 
(Alford, Matt. xxiv. 33). As the blight and barren- 
ness were for the age, so the budding and bloom- 
ing will be a joyful sign of the termination of the 
age. Thus our Lord has given one answer to 
the question with which this chapter opens : 
"What shall be the sign of Thy coming and of 
the end of the age ? " 

Are there any swelling buds of promise now 
visible on the long-withered Jewish stock ? We 
name these, whose presence only the densest 
prejudice can fail to recognize as significant : 
The civil emancipation of Israel during the pres- 
ent century where in all lands she has been op- 
pressed, as though the word of the Lord were 
already fulfilling, " Loose thyself from the bands 
of thy neck, oh, captive daughter of Zion ; " the 
tide of emigration setting toward Palestine, accel- 
erated of late by the persecutions in many coun- 
tries, as though the Israelites were being driven 
out in order to be driven home ; the extraordinary 
conquests of the gospel in later years among this 
people, so that it is estimated that more Jews 
have been converted to Christianity in the nine- 



ig6 ECCE VEN1T. 



teenth century than during the whole period of 
the Christian era ; and last, the wonderful Christ- 
believing movement headed by Joseph Rabin- 
owitch of Russia — a movement within the Jew- 
ish Church for confessing Jesus as the Messiah — 
having this for its watchword : " The key of the 
Holy Land lies in the hand of our brother Jesus." 
This remarkable revival, though but five years in 
progress, is said to have already won to itself 
some fifty thousand adherents ; and Professor 
Delitzsch, the eminent Hebraist, having studied it 
in the light of the prophetic Scriptures, expresses 
the conviction that it " marks the beginning of 
the end;" and with him several thoughtful Jew- 
ish Christians join in publishing their judgment, 
that "this movement may develop into the prom- 
ised restoration of Israel." 

The world-wide proclamation of the gospel is 
also a significant token of the approaching end 
of the age. " And this gospel of the kingdom," 
our Lord declares, " shall be preached in all the 
world for a witness unto all nations, and then 
shall come the end." Prophecy unfolds itself in 
concentric circles of fulfillment, each circle tak- 
ing in a wider sweep of history than its prede- 
cessor, till the whole circumference of the divine 
prediction has been filled up. This principle is 
illustrated in the Saviour's saying : " Verily, I 



FORE GLEAMS OF THE BAY. 197 

say unto you, This generation shall not pass away 
till all be fulfilled " (Matt. xxiv. 34). The gen- 
eration then living did not pass away until the 
destruction of Jerusalem, — that ending of the 
Jewish age which was a vivid foretype of the 
greater event, the termination of the Christian 
age ; but the generation in its larger sense — 
the Hebrew race — survived that catastrophe, 
and still endures, as a standing memorial of the 
truth of this saying of our Lord ; its budding 
and revival to be the sure foretoken of the end 
of this dispensation, as its cursing and withering 
were of the end of the former. We may draw a 
figure at this point from a beautiful expression in 
Paul's sermon on Mars Hill, where, according to 
the original, he says that God hath " Jwrizoncd 
the times appointed." 1 In prophecy there are 

1 It is evident, comparing St. Luke with the other synoptists, 
that Jesus turned the thoughts of the disciples to two horizons, 
one near and one far off, as He suffered them to see one brief 
glimpse of the landscape of the future. The boundary line of 
either horizon marked the winding up of a ceon< the avureXeia 
amvos ; each was a great TeAoy, or ending ; of each it was true 
that the then existing ytvea — first in its literal sense of "gener- 
ation," then in its wider sense of " race " — should not pass away 
till all had been fulfilled. And the one was the type of the 
other : the judgment upon Jerusalem, followed by the establish- 
ment of the visible Church upon earth, foreshadowed the judg- 
ment of the world and the establishment of Christ's kingdom at 
His second coming. — Farrar's Life of Christ, ii. 259. 



ECCE VENIT. 



near and distant horizons, their outline so blend- 
ing to the eye that they can with difficulty be 
distinguished. Thus do the bounds of the suc- 
cessive ages mingle in the outlook of the future ; 
and, in our Lord's great eschatological discourse, 
so complete is the mingling that it is quite im- 
possible entirely to separate them. Keep in mind 
this fact in interpreting our Saviour's prophecy 
of the preaching of the gospel among all nations. 
It was fulfilled within the narrower circle of the 
Roman world, before the fall of the Jewish city 
and the termination of the Hebrew economy. 
Paul, writing to the Colossians, speaks of " the 
gospel which is come unto you, as it is in all the 
world" and again, of "the hope of the gospel 
which ye have heard, and which was preacJied 
tinto every creature which is under heaven " (Col. 
i. 6, 23). The inner circle of this prediction was 
thus filled up ; and now we wait for the outer 
circumference to be reached, when, in the largest 
sense, "all nations " shall be visited by the gos- 
pel, that the end of this dispensation may come. 
Need it be said that our own generation, and 
especially our own century, is witnessing the un- 
questionable marks of the fulfillment of this pre- 
diction ? The century opened with almost every 
heathen country in gross darkness concerning 
the gospel ; it is about to close with every nation 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 199 

holding up luminous points of evangelized do- 
main to witness to God that it has received the 
witness of God in the gospel of His Son. 

The closing words of Daniel contain another 
sign for us: "But the wise shall understand." 
The book of prophecy, which was sealed " till 
the time of the end," was to be revealed to God's 
searching servants as the time of the end drew 
near. Therefore such uncovering of the pro- 
phetic mysteries, such inquiry and demonstration 
concerning the " what, and what manner of time," 
as our generation has witnessed, is a most strik- 
ing token of the nearing termination of the age. 
The same Spirit who is in the Word is in the 
Church ; and as " the testimony of Jesus is the 
spirit of prophecy," so the witnesses of Jesus will 
be the expositors of prophecy. Errors and mis- 
calculations they will make, no doubt ; but the 
general consensus of their opinion will be shaped, 
we believe, to the teaching of the inspired page. 
Therefore the deepening search is a sign of on- 
coming dawn. " It is not to be denied that our 
own age enters, with an earnestness and inten- 
sity such as no earlier one has shown, into the 
eschatological examination, and presses forward 
in the complete development of this doctrine, one 
sign among many that we are hastening towards 
the great decision." 1 

1 Kline. 



200 ECCE VENIT. 



And yet this is only half a sign, the bright side 
of an omen of hope, whose other hemisphere is 
in shadow. Peter gives us the dark counterpart. 
" Knowing this first, that there shall come in the 
last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 
and saying, Where is the sign of His coming ? 
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things con- 
tinue as they were from the beginning of the cre- 
ation " (2 Pet. iii. 3). 1 Language could not de- 
scribe more accurately the attitude of a large sec- 
tion of the nominal Church respecting the future. 
" Evolution, not catastrophe," is the cry. By the 
transforming power of Christian civilization, the 
world is to be gradually subdued to God, and the 
present good age, with its beneficent endowment 
of steam, and electricity, and printers' type, is 
to terminate in a Christo-scientific millennium. 
Darwin, the apostle of evolution, echoes back the 

1 Never did the Church witness such a constellation of signs 
of the near coming of Christ as now. " The branches of the fig 
tree are full of sap, and the summer is at hand." Assuredly I 
am not ignorant that a portion of the Church has become grad- 
ually weary of the long-tarrying, and has fallen into doubt. You 
also shake your head, and are of the opinion that we have long 
talked of " the last time." Well, use this language, and increase 
the number of the existing signs by this new one. Add that of 
the foolish virgins, who, shortly before the midnight hour, main- 
tained " the Lord would not come for a long time." — F. W. 
Krummacher. 



FOR EG LEA MS OF THE DAY. 201 

words of Peter, the apostle of judgment, saying : 
"All things continue as they were since the be- 
ginning of creation ; there is no need for miracu- 
lous intervention, no room for supernatural ac- 
tion ; as it was in the beginning, so it is now, and 
so it shall ever be, as regards the succession of 
physical phenomena." In this saying he speaks 
for multitudes within the Christian Church. Man 
is the microcosm of creation ; and as the doctrine 
of salvation by development has with many su- 
perseded that of salvation by regeneration, so has 
the theory of a millennium through evolution 
taken the place of that of a millennium, through 
crisis. 

We should be reminded, at this point, that the 
signs of the approaching end of the age are both 
bright and dark. The gloomy pessimism which 
looks only for deepening apostasy is quite as 
wrong as the placid optimism which expects the 
world to glide peacefully into the golden age of 
glory. The brighter the light the deeper the 
shadow. The world - wide evangelization which 
our generation is witnessing ; the translation of 
the Scriptures into innumerable tongues ; the 
unparalleled study of the Bible, through Sunday* 
school and lay instruction ; the revivalism pro- 
moted by such bands of earnest workers of every 
grade and order, — these facts indicate that a 



202 ECCE VENIT. 



light is falling upon our lost humanity such as 
never was before. But the shadows are "the 
blackness of darkness" itself. Avarice within 
the Church, threatening to throttle the gospel 
just when the promise is greatest for its triumph ; 
anarchy without, menacing all order and stability 
with its angry growl ; the ruin which Christian 
nations are sowing, in the path of the mission- 
ary's blessing, by their opium and strong drink ; 
the ingenious vice and elaborate debauchery which 
our higher civilization is begetting ; the restrained 
anger of the nations, who await only the slightest 
provocation to fly at each other's throats with 
their terrific armaments, — this outlook is so dis- 
mal as to be utterly appalling, were we not confi- 
dent that even the shadows point to the dawn. 
"Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and 
zvoi'se, deceiving and being deceived." Present 
history gives its emphatic Amen ! to this sure 
word of prophecy. But "the path of the just is 
a shining light, that shineth more and more unto 
the perfect day ; " and, God be praised ! a great 
company are walking that path to-day, with their 
faces brightening with a keener radiance as they 
behold their redemption drawing nigh. Hemi- 
spheres of hope are both, to those who know the 
Scriptures, — the darkness of abounding deprav- 
ity, and the brightness of saintly consecration. 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 203 

For the energy of Satan is evermore a tribute 
to the zeal of God appearing in the Church. If 
Christians are rising up to extraordinary service 
for God, because they know that " the time is 
short," what wonder if Satan should "come down 
with great wrath because he knoweth he hath 
but a short time ? " 

As for chronological signs, we believe that 
these are given to enable us to approximate, not 
to calculate, the time of the end. Those compu- 
tations by which some have presumed to deter- 
mine the day and the hour of the Lord's return 
have brought great discredit upon Apocalyptic 
study. Only as the prophet's lamp shines upon 
the prophet's calendar can we read it aright ; and 
while we examine the inspired dates of the latter, 
we must give heed to the divine admonition of 
the former: "But of that day and hour knoweth 
no man ; no, not the angels of heaven, but my 
Father only" (Matt. xxiv. 36). 

In saying this, however, we are far from dispar- 
aging the study of. divine chronology. That oft- 
repeated interval, — " time, and times, and a half 
a time" 'forty and two months," "a tJwnsand two 
Jnmdred and tJireescore days," — we hold to sig- 
nify always the same thing, according to the year- 
day interpretation, twelve hundred and sixty years. 
Now, as this is the period of the domination of 



204 ECCE VENIT. 



the beast (Rev. xiii. 6), and of the witnesses 
prophesying in sackcloth (xi. 3), of the career of 
the " little horn" (Dan. vii. 24), and of the so- 
journ of the woman in the wilderness (Rev. xii. 
6), it gives us several lines of measurement that 
verify each other. By general consent, the "little 
horn" and "the beast" signify the Antichrist. 
This mysterious power holds dominion for "forty 
and two months" the same period as that of the 
woman's sojourn in the wilderness. But the 
exile of the Bride, the woman in white, must cor- 
respond in duration with the enthronement of the 
Harlot, the woman in purple, for these are the 
obverse and reverse sides of the same prophetic 
fact. Now, as we know from history that the 
Harlot has been sitting as queen on the seven 
hills for more than twelve hundred years, and as 
we know from prophecy that her opposite, the 
Bride, was to be in exile for "a thousand two 
hundred and threescore days," we conclude that 
these days signify years, for the Beast, and for 
the Bride, and for the Harlot alike, all these 
having the same period for their allotted career. 
Therefore it is not true, as some assert, that An- 
tichrist arises only after the apostate Church has 
run her course, to hold sway for a literal three 
years and a half ; but he is contemporaneous with 
her. Now, since Antichrist's destruction is ef- 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 205 

fected by Christ's' coming, the career of the for- 
mer, as predicted in prophecy and confirmed by 
history, must furnish one of the plainest meas- 
ures by which to approximate the time of the end. 
If the rise of the papacy could be fixed as to the 
exact day and year, we might not err in seeking 
by computation for the day and year of its fall, 
and so approximate closely the date of the coming 
of the Lord. But as its beginning was in several 
epoch-marking events, so, applying our measuring 
line, we must look for its decline in corresponding 
crises of decadence, each crisis being an alarm 
bell for admonishing us to watchfulness. From 
several initial dates in history, corresponding ter- 
minal periods have been correctly anticipated by 
students of prophecy for the last three hundred 
years. It is impossible to enter with detail into 
the subject. Nearly two hundred years ago, 
Apocalyptic scholars forecast the years 1790 and 
1848 as critical years in the commencing of the 
downfall of the papacy, — the first of which, as 
events proved, brought her under the bloody 
judgments of the French Revolution, and the 
second into that other political convulsion which 
drove the pope into exile. So, likewise, many 
expositors concurred in looking for some marked 
calamity to Rome in 1868-70, — the latter year, 
as history was to prove, being that of the down- 



2o6 ECCE VENIT. 



fall of the temporal power of the pope, the sever- 
est blow, in the estimation of many, which has 
fallen upon Rome in a thousand years. These 
are illustrations of correct chronological compu- 
tation which might be greatly multiplied. They 
suffice to indicate that they err not who, like 
the prophets, search "what manner of time" the 
Spirit in the Word has signified by the chronol- 
ogy therein given ; as they suffice, also, to indi- 
cate that our century is solemnly marked as the 
era of expiring dates, and therefore of startling 
admonitions to watchful expectation. 

One black, portentous cloud of warning hangs 
upon the horizon, to which we refer in closing. 
The Apocalyptic picture of the three unclean 
spirits like frogs, out of the mouth of the dragon, 
and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the 
mouth of the false prophet, has been generally 
taken as predictive of an outbreak of sorcery. 
And here, as frequently, we have the divine in- 
terpretation accompanying the divine prediction : 
"For they are the spirits of demons, working mir- 
acles " (Rev. xvi. 14). It is a sign of the times 
not to be mistaken. The abominations of witch- 
craft, which God so constantly condemns in Scrip- 
ture, with threat of the sorest penalties, have 
once more broken upon the world, under the 
name of Spiritualism. . A great cloud of black 
spirits have darkened the air ; millions have been 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAY. 207 

seduced into lending their ears to their whisper- 
ings, and, among these, multitudes of nominal 
Christians. That it is "the spirits of demons" 
who are personating kindred and friends, and giv- 
ing their soul-destroying " revelations of the un- 
seen world," we have no question. Their fantas- 
tic miracles, their grotesque tricks of infernalism, 
— who has not heard of them? This we count 
the blackest cloud on the horizon. But observe 
the silver with which it is lighted up : " Behold, I 
come as a thief ! " is the startling warning which 
breaks out in the very next sentence of Revela- 
tion, as though it had been said, "When you see 
this come to pass, then look up." And not only 
a warning, but an exhortation: "Blessed is he 
that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he 
walk naked and they see his shame." All night 
long the Temple watchmen made their rounds of 
duty, never knowing at what hour their overseer 
would come in upon them to learn if they were 
vigilant and faithful. If, coming unawares, he 
found any watchman sleeping at his post, the 
penalty was that the offender should be stripped 
of his garments and turned out naked of his uni- 
form, to his shame and confusion. " Blessed are 
those servants whom the Lord, when He com- 
eth, shall find watching. And if He come in the 
second watch, or come in the third watch, and 
find them so, blessed are those servants." 



III. 

BEHOLD HE COMETH! 

It is such a momentous event, — the coming of 
the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, — r and the 
contemplation of it so overpowers the imagination, 
that we can easily understand why, in this age so 
averse to the supernatural, attempts to explain 
away its literalness should multiply on every hand. 
But, as though anticipating these evasions and 
refinings of latter-day philosophy, the Holy Ghost 
has guarded this great hope of the Church by the 
utmost accuracy of definition (Acts i. n). " This 
same Jesus who is taken up from you " fixes the 
corporeal identity of the coming Lord with Him 
whom we have known of the wounded hands and 
pierced feet ; and "shall so come in like manna' 
as ye have seen Him go into Heaven" determines 
His literal, visible, and bodily return to earth. 
So, also, with the Thessalonian prediction (i 
Thess. iv. 16). In the words, "The Lord Himself 
shall descend from heaven with a shout," there 
is a kind of underscoring of Holy Writ, that we 
may be particularly reminded that it is no spir- 
itual apparition of Christ for which we look, but 
" His own august personal presence." 



BEHOLD HE COMETH. 20$ 

And yet His parousia, of which the Scripture 
so constantly speaks, is said to signify His pres- 
ence ; and therefore elaborate volumes have been 
written to prove that " the coming — paronsia — 
of the Son of man " means His abiding invisible 
dwelling in the Church through the Holy Spirit. 
" Presence " the word undoubtedly means, but not 
omnipi'esence. The everywhereness of Christ in 
the person of the Comforter is the peculiar bless- 
ing of this dispensation. In this sense He can 
say to every member of His mystical body, the 
Church, in every place on earth and at every 
moment of time : " Lo, I am with you always, 
even unto the end of the age." It was in order 
to give place for this world-wide, or rather Church- 
wide, indwelling that it was expedient for our 
Lord to go away ; that so the Paraclete might 
come to abide with His people perpetually. But 
this every where-presence of Christ by the Holy 
Ghost is never once spoken of in Scripture as 
His parousia. This term applies only to His 
bodily and visible presence, a being with us, which 
can only be effected by a corporeal return to us. 
Therefore is His advent comprehensively called 
His parousia, or coming; it is that "for which 
we look," and which " every eye shall see," and 
not that which has already come to pass spirit- 
ually, and which, therefore, no eye can see. 



210 ECCE VENIT. 



The second coming of Christ is the axis of a 
true eschatology ; that in which all its doctrines 
and all its hopes stand together. Rightly are 
some insisting on what they name a Christo-cen- 
tric theology ; only let them consistently apply 
their principle to the doctrine of last things, 
making all our ultimate hopes and attainments to 
concentre in the coming Christ. Then shall we 
cease to hear in orthodox dogmatics that " sancti- 
fkation ends at death," when the New Testament 
everywhere binds its consummation to the second 
advent of Christ ; then, also, except in liberal 
theology, may we no longer listen to the affirma- 
tion that resurrection is attained for each one 
separately in an instant, in the shutting of an 
eye, at the last breath of the body, when Scripture 
declares that " we shall all be changed, in a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump " 
(i Cor. xv. 51, 52). Any doctrine of the resur- 
rection dissociated from the advent must be 
false, — false because eccentric, and without rela- 
tion to the axis of redemption, the parousia. No 
atonement apart from the cross ; no resurrection 
apart from the coming ! The morning star of the 
Church is the glorious appearing ; but this star, 
at least, has satellites, — the resurrection, the rap- 
ture, the glory, — and not one of these will be 
visible "until the day dawn, and the day star 
arise." 



BEHOLD HE COMETH. 



What deep questions suggest themselves as 
soon as we begin to meditate on this theme ! 
How can it be, if His coming is personal and 
bodily, that "every eye shall see Him"? Will 
His parousia be prolonged, or, as some hold, will 
it elapse in a moment, " as the lightning cometh 
out of the east, and shineth even unto the west," 
leaving the great world to wonder what has be- 
come of the saints ? In other words, will He be 
visible to His Church alone at His parousia, man- 
ifesting Himself unto them, but not to the world 
until a later epiphany, when He shall appear in 
glory with His saints ? Already there has been 
too much of dogmatizing on these points ; there- 
fore we prefer to leave them for the day to reveal. 

The attitude of the Church towards this sub- 
lime event is the all - important consideration. 
That should be one of joyful hope, and not of 
dread expectation. We cannot think that true 
and watchful believers will share in that advent 
wail which is so graphically pictured in the Rev- 
elation (Rev. i. 7) : " All the tribes of the land 
shall mourn over Him," indeed, they who pierced 
Him reading their condemnation in His wounds 
and smiting on their breasts ; but they who own 
those wounds as the credentials of their peace 
with God will lift up their heads and rejoice, 
saying : " Lo, this is our God ; we have waited 



212 ECCE VENIT. 



for Him and He will save us : this is the Lord ; 
we have waited for Him ; we will be glad and re- 
joice in His salvation " (Is. xxv. 9). Eagerly do 
we summon parable and poetry to picture the 
exultant scene as we gather it from Scripture. 
One who stands among us, as the venerable Sim- 
eon of our generation, "just and devout, waiting 
for the consolation of Israel," 1 has, in a recent 
utterance, made the advent scene so real by the 
use of a historical incident, that we are con- 
strained herewith to reproduce the picture en- 
tire : — 

" When those that upheld the banner of truth 
had almost lost heart, and Protestantism seemed 
failing, John Knox accepted the invitation from 
the true-hearted ones, and left Geneva for Scot- 
land. When he landed, quick as lightning the 
news spread abroad. The cry arose everywhere, 
' John Knox has come ! ' Edinburgh came rush- 
ing into the streets ; the old and the young, the 
lordly and the low, were seen mingling together 
in delighted expectation. All business, all com- 
mon pursuits, were forsaken. The priests and 
friars abandoned their altars and their masses 
and looked out alarmed, or were seen standing 
by themselves, shunned like lepers. Studious 
men were roused from their books ; mothers set 

1 Dr. Andrew Bonar. 



BEHOLD HE COMETH. 213 

down their infants and ran to inquire what had 
come to pass. Travelers suddenly mounted and 
sped into the country with the tidings, 'John 
Knox has come.' At every cottage door the in- 
mates stood and clustered, wondering, as horse- 
man after horseman cried, ' Knox has come.' 
Barks departing from the harbor bore up to 
each other at sea to tell the news. Shepherds 
heard the tidings as they watched their flocks 
upon the hills. The warders in the castle chal- 
lenged the sound of quick feet approaching, and 
the challenge was answered, ' John Knox has 
come ! ' The whole land was moved ; the whole 
country was stirred with a new inspiration, and 
the hearts of enemies withered." Oh, if that was 
the effect of the sudden presence of a man like 
ourselves, — a man whom we will rejoice to meet 
in the kingdom, but only a man, — what will the 
land feel, what will earth feel, when the news 
comes, " The Son of man ! The Son of man ! 
His sign has been seen in the heaven ! O wise 
virgins, with what joy will you go out to meet 
Him ! " 

Some admonish us not to take too literally the 
words, " And at midnight there was a cry made, 
Behold the Bridegroom cometh ! " since, sudden 
as the advent surprise will be, it cannot really be 
in the night for all the world, as one side of the 



14 ECCE VENIT. 



globe is dark and the other light at the same 
moment. True ; and yet how perfectly our Lord's 
picture of His coming answers to this fact, since 
it brings into the same instantaneous photograph 
a day-scene, and a night-scene, and a twilight- 
scene : " I tell you in that night there shall be 
two men in one bed," — the midnight surprise ; 
"the one shall be taken and the other shall be 
left." "Two women shall be grinding together," 
— the twilight surprise; "the one shall be taken 
and the other left." "Then shall two be in the 
field," — the mid-day surprise ; "the one shall be 
taken and the other left " (Matt. xxiv. 40; Luke 
xvii. 34-36). It would seem thus as though the 
lightning-flash of His parousia would encircle the 
world in an instant. Realistic in the highest 
degree is the picture : no halt in the hurried 
march of our humanity for burnishing the armor 
for the grand review ; no pause in life's drama 
for shifting the scenery before the final act is 
introduced ! Instant transition of the Church 
from busy toil and tired sleep into the beatific 
vision and the awakening immortality, and as 
instant a lapse of the ungodly from the day of 
grace into the day of doom. The event will evi- 
dently be utterly unexpected except for the faith- 
ful few who have kept their watch. 

Morally, or rather dispensationally, Christ's 



BEHOLD HE COMETH. 215 

coming will be in the night. For such, according 
to Scripture, is the whole period of our Lord's 
absence. When He was yet with His Church 
He said : " I must work the works of Him that 
sent me while it is day: the night cometh." It 
was His presence that made the day, — " As long 
as I am in the world, I am the light of the world " 
(John ix. 5), — and His removal that would bring 
the night. Hence we find Paul saying, — in the 
time of the Lord's absence and in view of His 
return, — " The night is far spent, the day is at 
hand" (Rom. xiii. 12). Here is an exact inversion 
of the order from that of Christ, suggesting that 
it is the absence or the presence of our Lord 
which determines the question. " They that sleep, 
sleep in the night" (1 Thess. v. 6). The words 
are true dispensationally as well as literally. So 
long as " they that sleep in Jesus" are still in 
their graves, the world's morning will not have 
come: "And they that are drunken are drunken 
in the night" So long as the riot of unrestrained 
sin goes on over all the earth, and the mass of 
humanity is held in the mad intoxication of the 
god of this world, the day-dawn will not yet be 
visible. But what an exquisite parable there is 
for us — an enacted parable — in that story of 
Christ's walking on Tiberias ! He has "gone up 
unto the mountain apart to pray ; " and the 



216 ECCE VENIT. 



Church which He launched is "now in the midst 
of the sea, tossed with waves and the wind con- 
trary." But "in the fourth watch of the night" 
He comes to her, walking upon the sea ; and 
they, who for a moment feared and were troubled 
at the startling apparition, will hear His voice 
saying, " Be of good cheer : it is I ; be not afraid." 
These words will bring an end to all sorrow, a 
calm for all storms. 

"And they shall see the Son of man coming 
in the clouds of heaven with power and great 
glory." Himself has said this concerning Him- 
self, and to attempt to heighten the effect of His 
words by any imaginative description of the scene 
predicted were certainly to lower the impression 
which the inspired declaration itself makes upon 
the mind. So great is this saying that it alone 
befits the incarnate Word who spoke it. " Only 
a Jesus could forge a Jesus," it has been said; 
and only the Coming One whom we have known, 
"whose goings forth have been of old from ever- 
lasting" could predict for Himself such a coming 
as this. And the hope of it has reversed the 
current of humanity. " Man goeth to his long 
home, and the mournefs go about the streets," 
was the plaintive strain of the old dispensation. 
But since Jesus ascended and put the exultant 
"Ecce Venit" into the mouth of His redeemed, 



BEHOLD HE COMETH. 217 

"Man cometh" is now their song. The proces- 
sion of mortality is about to halt, and then to 
move forward ; but forward shall now signify 
from death to life : from the pilgrim's inn of the 
grave to the long home of " Forever with the 
Lord." 



IV. 

THE FIRST RESURRECTION-. 

The announcement of two resurrections, sepa- 
rated in time by a thousand years, and distin- 
guished in character as unto immortality and 
unto mortality, seems to be one of the very plain- 
est in all Scripture : "And I saw the souls of them 
that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus 
and for the Word of God : and such as worshiped 
not the beast, neither his image, and received not 
his mark upon their forehead and upon their 
hand: and they lived and reigned with Christ a 
thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not 
until tJie thousand years shoidd be finished. This 
is the first resurrection" (Rev. xx. 4, 5, r. v.). 
Here is first a vision of disembodied souls, then 
of their reanimation. This reanimation must 
mean a literal rising from the dead ; for two 
words employed in the passage put the matter 
beyond dispute: "They lived" — It^crav — is lan- 
guage which is never, in the New Testament, 
applied to the soul disembodied, but to man in 
his complete condition of body and spirit united ; 
and "This is the first resurrection" — draorao-is — 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 



defines this living to be bodily reanimation, since 
the word in the New Testament, with perhaps a 
single exception, always signifies corporeal resur- 
rection. So that the phraseology employed seems 
to render it impossible to apply the vision either 
to the condition of disembodied existence or to 
the quickening of spiritual regeneration. 

But how is it that we have never met this 
startling doctrine of two distinct resurrections, 
with a millennium between, till we reach the last 
book of the Bible ? We have met it without be- 
ing able to define it. As in Daniel, we have a con- 
densed prophecy of the great tribulation which, 
by our Lord's interpretation in the twenty-fourth 
of Matthew, is expanded into an age-long period 
of Jewish trial ; so in John's Gospel (v. 28), we 
have a miniature prediction of the resurrection : 
"For the hour is coming in which all that are in 
their tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God, and shall come forth, they that have done 
good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that 
have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment," 
— which hour, in the Apocalypse of John, is in- 
terpreted as covering the entire millennial era in 
its fulfillment. This is according to the common 
method of prophecy. 

Holding that the last presentation of the resur- 
rection — this in the Apocalypse — is the com- 



2 20 ECCE VENIT. 



pletest and most comprehensive, the important 
question is, whether the statements of the doc- 
trine in other parts of Scripture harmonize with 
this. Not only do they harmonize, but in^several 
instances they find their only solution in it. 

In the first place, we call attention to a class of 
passages which are marked by this peculiarity, 
that they seem to represent the resurrection of 
believers as eclectic and special. It is plain, if 
the scheme which we have drawn out from Rev. 
xx. is correct, that the subjects of the first resur- 
rection are called out from the general mass of 
the dead ; or, in other words, that a prior resur- 
rection would involve the idea of an elect resur- 
rection. And this conception would seem to 
explain at once our Lord's allusion (Luke xx. 35) 
to those who shall be " accounted worthy to ob- 
tain that age, and the resurrection out from the 

dead, — tt}s di/acrrao-ecos rrjs Ik veKpiov. If there be 

a first resurrection, at the opening of the millen- 
nial age, in which only the righteous share, the 
significance of this text is apparent at once. 
Even more striking are the words of Paul (Phil. 
iii. 11) : "I count all things but loss ... if by any 
means I might attain unto the out - resurrection 

from tJie dead" rrjv l^avaaracriv Ttjv Ik veKpiov, The 

words are very strong in the Greek. We do not 
see how they can possibly refer to anything else 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 



than an eclectic resurrection, a separation and 
quickening to life out from among the dead. 
Especially would this seem to be so when, in ad- 
dition to the very emphatic language describing 
the resurrection itself, there is the expression of 
intense desire and vehement striving to attain it. 
Why should one strive to attain what is inevi- 
table, as Paul's resurrection must have certainly 
appeared to be, had he held that all men will be 
raised together ? And what can our Lord's words 

— " They which shall be accounted worthy to ob- 
tain that age and the resurrection from the dead " 

— mean on any other view than that which we 
are defending, — the view, namely, that there is 
a prior age in which the rising of the saints will 
take place, and a distinct, and special, and privi- 
leged dispensation of bodily redemption which 
belongs to them ? And this phase of our argu- 
ment is set in very strong light by the additional 
fact that this expression, " resurrection from the 
dead," — di/ao-rao-ts Ik veKpwv, — is so invariable 
throughout the New Testament in its applica- 
tion to Christ as well as to His saints. There is 
only one instance where the other phrase, avd- 
o-rao-is vzxpuv, — the general expression for the 
resurrection of the dead, — is applied to our Lord, 
and that seems to be on account of a special 
requirement of the context (Rom. i. 4.) He, 



222 ECCE VENJT. 



coming forth from the dead, and opening the 
doors for all believers to come forth with Him 
in the resurrection unto life, is described just as 
they are, as rising U veKpuv. Hence, very sig- 
nificantly, we find it said in the Acts that the 
apostles "preached through Jesus the resurrec- 
tion from the dead" not the resurrection of the 
dead (iv. 2). Now we will not dwell on the ques- 
tion whether the eclectic conception is contained 
in the words to the extent that we have claimed. 
We find it admitted even by some who oppose 
the doctrine we are advocating. Olshausen even 
goes so far as to declare that " the phrase would 
be inexplicable if it were not derived from the idea 
that out of the mass of the dead some would rise 
first." 1 

And what if it be affirmed that even in the 
Old Testament we find distinct traces of the idea 
of an eclectic and precedent resurrection of the 
just ? The passage in Daniel xii. 2, translated in 
our common version, " And many of them that 

1 " What special meaning," asks Professor Stuart, " can this 
language have unless it implies that there is a resurrection where 
the just only, and not the unjust, shall be raised ? " This ex- 
pression, as well as the " every man in his own order," and the 
evident " plain prose " character of the passage in Rev. xx., com- 
pels this learned man, though a strong post-millenarian, to con- 
cede most fully the doctrine of the first resurrection. — Stuart 
on Apocalypse, i. pp. 175, 178, 379, 499, and ii. 356, 474, 562. 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 223 

sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some 
to everlasting life, and some to shame and ever- 
lasting contempt," is undoubtedly a Messianic 
prediction concerning the time of the end. Tre- 
gelles translates the passage as follows, giving us 
not only the authority of his own accurate schol- 
arship for the rendering, but that of two eminent 
rabbis, Saadia Haggion and Eben Ezra, whose 
explanations are quoted at length : "And many 
from among the sleepers of the dust of the earth 
shall awake, these — that awake — shall be unto 
everlasting life ; but those — the rest of the 
sleepers who do not awake at this time — shall 
be unto shame and everlasting contempt." Here 
again, if our authorities are correct, we have the 
idea of the first resurrection with its eclectic and 
separate character, and its distinct issue in life, 
most emphatically set forth. And how solemnly 
applicable to the literal as well as to the spiritual 
quickening of men are the words of our Lord : 
"The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God, and they that hear shall live." One event 
awaits mankind : " Like sheep they are laid in 
the grave ; death shall feed upon them." But all 
will not hear the great first resurrection call. As 
now, so then, the words of Jesus will be true : 
" My sheep hear my voice." As now, so then, 
only those that have received the spirit of adop- 



224 ECCE VENIT. 



tion will cry, " Abba, Father ! " as the great God 
shall call to the dead by the mouth of His Son. 
" If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from 
the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ 
from the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies 
by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." That Spirit 
is the bond of life between Christ and all that 
sleep in Him, and the pledge of their redemption 
from the grave. The witness, now, of our son- 
ship, He is the witness that then we shall be 
children of the resurrection ; responding and 
waking instantly at the sound of the trumpet, — 
"Thou shalt call and I will answer;" while in 
"that silence that terrifies thought," the rest of 
the dead shall sleep on, waiting only in their con- 
scious loss for the Day of Judgment to consum- 
mate and manifest their doom. 1 

1 As indicating how far this idea is from being novel or 
modern, we offer these striking testimonies : Chrysostom says : 
" The just shall rise before the wicked, that they may be first in 
the resurrection, not only in dignity, but in time" (Comment on 
i Thess. iv. 15). Jeremy Taylor says: "The resurrection shall 
be universal : good and bad shall rise, yet not all together, but 
first Christ, then they that are Christ's ; and then there is an- 
other resurrection," etc. (Sermon on 1 Cor. xv. 23). Toplady 
says: "I am one of those old-fashioned people who believe the 
doctrine of the millennium, and that there will be two distinct 
resurrections of the dead : first of the just, and second of the 
unjust ; which last resurrection of the reprobate will not com- 
mence till a thousand years after the resurrection of the elect." 
— Works, vol. hi. p. 470. 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 225 

Had we time to take up all the texts bearing 
on the question, we should wish to notice some 
passages which represent the resurrection as di- 
rectly conditioned on faith and regeneration and 
union with Christ ; all of which would go to show 
that the redemption of the body is a distinct in- 
heritance of believers in some sense, and cer- 
tainly not unlikely in the sense we are claiming. 

We wish now to refer to two texts which have 
been cited as distinctly and unquestionably con- 
tradicting the theory we are advocating. The 
first is in 2 Timothy iv. 1, reading, according to 
the common version : " I charge thee, therefore, 
before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall 
judge the quick and the dead at His appearing 
and His kingdom." It is said that we have here 
the living and the dead, without distinction or 
separation, brought together at the coming of 
Christ. All that need be said in regard to this 
passage is that, according to the revised version, 
the words read : " and by His appearing and 
kingdom." This change not only relieves the 
passage of any seeming contradiction of the doc- 
trine which we are advocating, but makes it bear 
emphatic support to it. 

The other text is John v. 28, r. v. : " Marvel 
not at this ; for the hour cometh in which all that 
are in the tombs shall hear His voice and shall 



226 ECCE VENIT. 



come forth, they that have done good, unto the 
resurrection of life ; and they that have done ill, 
unto the resurrection of judgment." This, it is 
said, teaches a simultaneous resurrection, since it 
declares that in the hour that is coming both 
classes will come forth to their respective re- 
wards. We answer that, in the first place, we 
think it is clear that the word "hour" (<Spa), as 
here employed, refers to an era or lengthened 
period of time. This we know is not an unusual 
meaning of the word, as appears by referring to 
such examples as I John ii. 18, Rom. xiii. n ; and, 
what is more directly to the point, our Lord had 
just used the term in this sense in verse twenty- 
fifth : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is 
coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall 
live." This is generally taken to refer to that 
spiritual quickening, under the preaching of the 
gospel, which began with the time of Christ, and 
is going on to-day. Therefore the hour referred 
to must have continued for at least nearly two 
thousand years. This is the time for the quicken- 
ing of the living who are dead in sins. It is evi- 
dently synchronous with i John ii. 18, — "It is 
the last time " (<5pa), — and covers the whole gos- 
pel dispensation. Next follows, in our Lord's 
discourse, a statement in regard to the time of 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 227 

the dead. The two periods are set in contrast, 
as it would seem. The first — the hour of spirit- 
ual quickening — has already begun. Hence it 
is described thus : " The hour is coming and now 
is." The second had not yet begun ; hence only 
the words, "The hour is coming," are used with 
reference to it. Is it not fair to presume that 
the second era, like the first, is a prolonged one ? 
We think no one can reasonably deny this. This 
is the way we take it : At the appearing of the 
Lord from heaven, the age will open in which all 
that are in their graves will come forth, but some 
at the beginning and some at the end of the age. 
If it be said that it is a strained and unnatural 
construction to bring events which are so far 
apart into such immediate juxtaposition, with no 
intimation of any time lying between them, we 
reply that it is not at all uncommon in prophecy. 
Who, for instance, in reading Isaiah's words con- 
cerning the Messiah, — " to proclaim the accept- 
able year of the Lord and the day of vengeance 
of our God," — would have imagined that in this 
single sentence two grand and distinct eras were 
brought together and spoken of in a breath, — 
the era of grace and the era of judgment ? But 
the Lord, by His penetrating exegesis, cleft the 
passage asunder, we remember, as He expounded 
it in the synagogue, and, breaking off in the mid 



228 ECCE VENIT. 






die of the sentence, — " to preach the acceptable 
year of the Lord/' — He closed the book and sat 
down, saying: "This day is this Scripture ful- 
filled in your ears " (Luke iv. 21). We take it 
that, in this prophetic passage of His own, there 
is a similar conjoining of distinct and widely 
separated acts of the same resurrection drama. 

And we are confirmed in this impression by 
noting how exactly this passage, with its expres- 
sions "resurrection of life" and "resurrection 
of judgment," corresponds to the passage in 
Revelation, these being common points in the 
two texts, — the latter seeming to fill out in de- 
tail what is here presented in outline. And this 
leads us to remark that there is perhaps no doc- 
trine of Scripture the references to which are at 
once so fragmentary and so complemental of each 
other as this doctrine of two resurrections. Ex- 
cept in the passage in the Revelation, it is no- 
where presented in a formal and complete state- 
ment. But what is very striking is, that almost 
every scattered allusion to it fits into this passage 
at some point, confirming its literal significance, 
and being confirmed by it. For example : All 
are agreed that John v. 28, 29, and Luke xx. 36, 
have reference to the literal rising of the body 
from the grave. Apply these texts to Revela- 
tion xx. 1-6, and note how perfectly they fit it : 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 229 

" They that have done good unto the resurrection 
of life ; " "They lived and reigned with Christ : 
this is resurrection the first " (Rev.) ; " They 
that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that 
world and the resurrection from the dead neither 
marry nor are joined in marriage, neither can they 
die any more" (Luke) ; "On such the second death 
hath no power" (Rev.). "They that shall be ac- 
coiinted worthy to obtain the resurrection from 
the dead " (Luke) ; "Blessed and holy is he that 
hath part in the first resurrection ;" "They that 
have done evil to the resurrection oi judgment" 
[k/kW] (John) ; "And they were judged \_l K pi6rj- 
aav] every man according to their works " (Rev.). 
We do not see how any candid critic can fail to 
identify these passages as referring to the same 
event, the literal resurrection of the body. And 
putting all these texts together, we find that one 
supplies what another omits ; the gospels and 
epistles teaching the privilege and preeminence 
attaching to the believer's resurrection, and the 
Apocalypse teaching its priority and separateness 
in time. 

Let us observe that the saints' resurrection is 
"first " in several senses. 

It is first in time, as we have already seen. 
How shall we state it ? That the death sentence 
has been shortened by a thousand years for the 



230 ECCE VENIT. 



martyrs who have won their reprieve by their 
faithful sufferings for Christ ; for the overcomers 
who have gained a seat with Christ in His mil- 
lennial throne by their victory over the world. 
We seem to hear these sainted ones saying to 
grim Death, as he exacts sin's wages : " Take thy 
bill and sit down quickly and write fifty," for, as 
partners with our suffering and victorious Lord, 
the half of your sentence has been remitted. Of 
Immanuel it is written : " Whom God hath raised 
up, having loosed the pains of death ; because it 
was not possible that He should be ./widen of it." 
He was no prison-breaker who burst the gates of 
death and "tore the bars away." He had served 
His appointed time in the grave, and therefore 
could not be longer detained ; and hence, after 
His two days' burial had expired, He received 
His righteous discharge. So we believe that His 
mystical dead body — "those that have been laid 
to sleep through Jesus" — cannot be holden of 
the tomb a single hour after it shall have begun 
to dawn towards the first day of the millennial 
week, because then their sentence will have ter- 
minated. This is the overcomer's hope, — the 
reward so much earlier, as well as more glorious, 
than we have dreamed of ! the crown so much 
sooner, as well as brighter, than we have imag- 
ined ! The devout Lavater, meditating on this 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 231 

point, exclaims : "How inexpressibly animating 
to the best exercise of our moral powers must 
this idea be, — to be a thousand years sooner in 
the enjoyment of the full fruition of the blessed ! 
So much earlier — a thousand years earlier — to 
enjoy personal fellowship with the lovely Saviour 
and the noblest of the human family, and, along 
with Jesus, the prophets and apostles, to super- 
intend the immediate concerns of the Godhead." 
First in character also will be this pre-millen- 
nial resurrection ; its preeminent glory being 
that upon those who attain to it " the second 
death hath no power." Here is the true harvest 
of which Christ is " the First-fruits." How can 
that Scripture be true which declares that Christ 
is first bom from the .dead" (Coloss. i. 19)? Had 
not several returned from death before Christ 
rose, — the Shunamite's son at the prayer of 
the prophet, and Lazarus and the widow's son at 
the call of Jesus ? How, then, was He u the first 
begotten of the dead" (Rev. i. 5)? The answer 
seems obvious. These were raised to die again. 
Wondrous as was the transaction which restored 
them to life, it was only this mortal putting on 
mortality, and this corruptible putting on corrup- 
tion. But "Christ being raised from the dead 
dicth 110 more ; death hath no more dominion over 
Him " (Rom. vi. 6). The gospel of the resurrec- 



232 ECCE VENIT. 



tion which we preach, therefore, has no peer or 
rival in that which nature presents to us. Beau- 
tiful and oft-recurring as is the latter, it whispers 
no hint of immortality. Of a mortal resurrection 
which the Scriptures foretell for some, we see 
tokens and similitudes all about us in nature — in 
the flower springing up from the seed which has 
fallen into the earth and died ; in the morning 
opening the vast grave of night, and summoning 
a sleeping world to rise and meet the sun " as he 
cometh forth as a bridegroom from his chamber;" 
in the springtide calling the earth from the tomb 
of winter, loosing her shroud of snow, and cloth- 
ing her with renewed life and beauty : in all these 
there are joyful parables and pledges of a resur- 
rection. But the flower fades and dies, the 
morning sinks again into the embrace of night, 
and the earth lies down once more in the sepul- 
chre of winter ; and so, alas ! these symbols only 
mock the hope they have kindled in the soul. 
But while we are asking sorrowfully, " Is there 
no resurrection that is exempt from death ? " this 
great text breaks upon our ears : " Blessed and 
holy is He that hath part in the first resurrection ; 
on such the second death hath no power." Christ's 
resurrection is the epitome of His Church's. As 
He rose only after a definite and divinely ap- 
pointed time of resting in the grave, so will 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 233 

His people. That unseemly snatching for the 
crown of life which characterizes the latest im- 
proved eschatology — the theory that every man 
rises from the dead as soon as the breath is out 
of the body — has no foundation in Scripture. 1 
Indeed, it has none in reason, unless we can admit 
that death is equivalent to life ; elimination to 
resurrection ; the falling down of this tabernacle 
of clay to its standing up. This is the revived 
error of Hymeneus and Philetus which makes 
the resurrection to be past already ; it places our 
hope in what is death's victory over us rather 
than our victory over death ; it promises us a 
bodiless spirit in place of that "spiritual body" 
which is our redemption-birthright. " This im- 
mortal spirit shall put off its mortal coil " is the 
doctrine of philosophy ; " This mortal shall put 
on immortality " is the doctrine of Scripture. 
Do we not see what transcendent honor is thus 
put upon the body in its promotion to incorrupt- 
ibility ? This in which we dwell — " the temple 
of the Holy Ghost " — is not our "vile body," as 

1 Professor Christlieb well says : " Whoever denies the bodily 
resurrection should be honest enough no longer to speak of res- 
urrection at all. Resurrection does not refer to the spirit, the con- 
tinued existence of which the Scripture takes as a matter of 
course, but only to the body, and its issuing forth alive from the 
grave. Only that can rise again which has been laid down in 
the grave, and that is only the body, not the spirit." — Modern 
Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 449. 



234 ECCE VENIT. 



it is misleadingly called in the common version ; 
though, because of the shadow of the curse which 
rests upon it, it is that in which " we groan being 
burdened." But itself shall be changed by the 
coming Lord, the very fabric and substance of it 
transformed and glorified. And because restora- 
tion rather than evolution is so distinctly taught 
in Scripture, we are certified of our continued 
physical identity, as it is written : " From whence 
also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
who shall fas J don anew the body of our humilia- 
tion, that it may be conformed to the body of His 
glory " (Phil. iv. 21, r. v.). The charcoal and the 
diamond are the same substance ; only that one 
is carbon in its humiliation, and the other carbon 
in its glory. So is this tabernacle in which we 
now dwell, in comparison with our house which 
is from heaven. The one is mortal flesh shad- 
owed by the curse, and doomed to be " sown in 
dishonor ; " the other is that flesh made immortal 
and marvelously transfigured. This house of clay, 
endeared to us by so many associations, is, there- 
fore, only to be untenanted for a brief while, that 
we may move into it again wondrously refitted 
and beautified by its divine Fashioner. This 
thought, if cherished, may heal the homesickness 
which so often comes over us in the thought of 
death. For observe the exquisite balancing of 
those two household words — ivSyj^ovvra and 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 235 

£K§r]ixovvTes — in Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians : 
" Knowing that while we are at home in the body, 
we zxefrom home 1 from the Lord, . . . and willing 
rather to be from home from the body, and at 
home with the Lord " (2 Cor. v. 6). But this 
home-dwelling with our Redeemer, as the connec- 
tion shows, is not attained by our being unclothed, 
but clothed upon, with our house which is from 
heaven, that mortality may be swallowed up of 
life. It is when we become immortal residents 
in an immortal body that we are forever at home : 
" So shall we be ever with the Lord : wherefore 
comfort one another with these words." Having 
these promises, therefore, we should eagerly look 
upward, in patient waiting for our house from 
heaven, seeking the consummation of our hope, 
not in the putting off of this our tabernacle, but 
in the putting on of that. After his ardent prayer 
that he " might attain unto the resurrection from 
the dead," the apostle adds : " I press towards 
the mark for the prize of the up - calling " — 
rrjs aw KXtjcrecos — "of God in Christ Jesus." Let 
who will fasten their hope upon the down-calling 
of mortality : " Return unto dust, ye children of 
men ; " we will listen patiently and joyfully for 
the up-calling of immortality : " Awake and sing, 
ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the 
dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her 
dead " (Is. xxvi. 19). 



V. 

THE TRAXSI.ATION OF THE CHURCH 

The most startling; and except for the testi- 
mony of the "sure word of prophecy " the most 
incredible, transaction of which we can conceive, 
is that set forth in the words, " caught up to meet 
the Lord in the air!' The lightning-flash of the 
advent, dazzling and blinding for a moment ; the 
swift transition of the cloud-chariot, and then 
"forever with the Lord" — this is the brief de- 
scription of the ecstatic scene which we call the 
Church's translation (i Thess. iv. 15-18). 

1 1 is a twofold event, affecting the sainted dead 
and the saints that are living at the time of the 
parousia, and bringing both into one condition. 
" The dead in Christ shall rise first ; then we 
which are alive and remain shall be caught up 
together with them." This order and distinction 
are revealed in several passages where the casual 
reader mi°;ht not discover them. In the storv of 
the raising of Lazarus — that enacted prophecy 
of the first resurrection — they are distinctly 
marked (John xi.). Beautiful miniature of the 
Church is that home in Bethany, whose crown- 



THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 237 

ing honor is this, that " Jesus loved Martha and 
her sister and Lazarus." Like the body of Christ 
to-day, a part living and a part dead, — " our 
friend Lazarus sleepeth," — this household was 
waiting the coming of the Lord. But notwith- 
standing the sickness and dying that were rav- 
aging that home, Jesus " abode two days still in 
the same place where He was!' just as He has 
already remained away from His Church nearly 
two millenniums — "one day is with the Lord as 
a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
day " — while sickness and mourning and death 
have been holding sway. Then the advent an- 
nouncement, for which we also wait, was heard, 
" Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but / go that I 
may awake him out of sleep." Such will be the 
blessed errand on which our Lord will come when 
the time of His return arrives. "Then Martha, 
as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went 
and met Him" even as the wise virgins will do 
when He shall come again; "but Mary sat still 
in the house," like those of the other company, 
the unwatchful and ungirded ones. 

Then hear the Lord's great advent exposition : 
" I am the Resurrection and the Life : he that be- 
lieveth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall lie 
live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me 
shall never die." It is no mere rhetorical ampli- 



2 38 ECCE VENIT. 



fication which we find here. This double office 
of Christ, and the corresponding twofold work, 
exactly match the declaration in the First Epistle 
to the Thessalonians (iv. 17). He is "the Resur- 
rection " to those who shall be in their graves at 
the time of His coming; He is "the Life" to 
those who shall then be on the earth. To the first 
class He alludes when He says, "though he were 
dead, yet shall he live ; " to the second He refers 
in the saying : " Whosoever liveth and believeth 
in Me shall never die." But both, in a moment, 
in the twinkling of an eye, shall be brought into 
the same condition of "glorified corporeity " at 
the sound of the last trumpet. 1 

Need we say that the transfiguration — that 
vivid tableau of the glorious appearing of our 
Lord — exhibits the same truth in unmistakable 
outline : "And, behold, there talked with Him 
two men, which were Moses and Elias, who 
appeared in glory." These two men were the 
representatives of the two classes just named. 
Moses, coming up from his unknown sepulchre 
in the valley of Moab, as the forerunner of the 



1 Let it be noticed that the second company named by Christ 
and the second company named by Paul are described by pre- 
cisely the same form of speech, the timeless present participle : 
■Kas 6 (a>v kol\ TTHTrevow, u all the living and believing'''' (John xi. 
25! ; rj/uLels ol (tovres ol ir€piKeiir6/j.evoi, " we the living, the remain- 
ing''' (1 Thess. iv. 17). 



THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 239 

dead who shall be raised at the advent of Christ ; 
and Elias, returning from the presence of the 
Lord, as the representative of those who taste 
not of death, but are translated, — these, stand- 
ing together with the Lord in transfiguration 
glory on the Mount, present to us a radiant re- 
hearsal, a glowing epitome, of the coming and 
kingdom of Jesus Christ. 

If we turn to the great resurrection discourse 
of Paul in the fifteenth of 1 Corinthians, we find 
at the culmination of the argument the same 
double reference : " For the trumpet shall sound, 
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we 
shall be changed." Here are the two parties to 
the final transfiguration ; and they are in an in- 
stant brought into the company of One for whom 
they both had been waiting. 

Incomparably beautiful are the prophet's in- 
spired words, when freed from the translator's 
interpolated words : " Thy dead shall live, my 
dead body shall they arise " (Isaiah xxvi. 19). The 
sainted sleepers, though under the deep humili- 
ation of corruption, he disdains not still to call 
" my body." Strangers and pilgrims in the 
earth, they have pitched their tents in the grave 
for a night, saying with their Lord : " Moreover, 
my flesh shall tabernacle in hope." And the first 
incident in the advent consummation will be the 



240 ECCE VENiT. 



summons for these sojourners in the tomb to 
strike their tents, and, with the living, to take 
up their march to meet the coming Bridegroom 
in the air. " For this corruptible must put on 
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immor- 
tality." Here we must believe in no mere skillful 
balancing of inspired rhetoric, but a double desig- 
nation to distinguish a double company, — those 
that are dead and those that are alive at the com- 
ing of Christ. For whether or not the first mem- 
ber of the sentence describes those whose flesh 
has seen corruption, the second member unques- 
tionably applies to the living and their change : 
" So when this corruptible shall have put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal shall have put on 
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the 
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in 
victory." 1 For then those upon the earth under 
sentence of death, and those in the earth under 

1 Lange's Commentary criticises Bengel's view of this passage, 
that "the epithets 'corruptible' and 'mortal' (i Cor. xv. 53) 
are to be distinguished as though the former applied to the dead 
and the latter to the living." But though the first word, (p6apr6s, 
— corruptible, — may refer to the living, its cognate forms, em- 
ployed in verses 42 and 52, apply to the dead. And we thence 
infer that " this corruptible " designates the same class. " This 
mortal" — Qv7\r6s, — on the contrary, is defined in the Thayer- 
Grimm Greek Lexicon to mean " subject to death, and so still liv- 
ing" 1 (cf. Rom. vi. 12; viii. 2; 2 Cor. iv. 2; v. 4). We think 
Bengel's view is reasonable, and not fanciful. 



THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 241 

the dominion of death, will shout together their 
triumph over the last enemy. 

As the daily watchers for the Lord's return, it 
is our dear hope that we may be in the company 
who shall not see death. This was the aspiration 
of Paul, expressed in the words : " Not for that 
we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that 
mortality might be swallowed up of life." He 
speaks not here of resurrection, but of transfigu- 
ration ; not of death swallowed up in victory, but 
of the swifter and more immediate transition of 
mortality swallowed up of life. With the secret 
wherewith he comforted others — " Behold, I 
show you a mystery : we shall not all sleep, but 
we shall all be changed " — he now comforts him- 
self, while groaning and burdened in this taber- 
nacle. It is the most thrilling thought conceiv- 
able for those who are all their lifetime subject 
to bondage through fear of death, that, instead of 
being unclothed by the ghastly hands of death, 
they may be clothed upon by the transfiguring 
touch of life ; that, instead of the winding-sheet 
of the grave, there may be the immediate en- 
swathement of the garments of glory. But to 
whichever company we may belong, the shout of 
triumph will be ours : " O Death, where is thy 
sting ? O Grave, where is thy victory ? " 

Reunion with the descending Saviour is the 



242 ECCE VENIT. 



first experience in the great transaction. " Caught 
up to meet the Lord in the air," — these words 
are crowded with suggestion, since they always 
signify to meet and return with. As the dis- 
ciples in Rome went out to meet Paul when they 
heard of his approach, and accompanied him to 
the city ; as the wise virgins are pictured as go- 
ing forth to meet the bridegroom and attending 
him to the house of the bride, — so by the same 
form of speech it is here implied that the Church 
will be raptured away to join the Lord on His 
advancing way, and escort Him back to the 
earth. 1 It is not true, as some have judged from 
this passage, either that the Lord comes no fur- 
ther than the upper air, or that believers depart 
forever from this lower world. This is rather 
the Redeemer's royal return to the earth. We 
remember how, on the visit of a great general 
to our city, — after he had conquered peace and 
saved the country, — a delegation of our most 
honored citizens went out a few miles beyond the 
borders of the town to welcome and conduct him 
to the metropolis. Thus will God's elect, the 

1 Acts xxviii. 15 ; Matt. xxv. 6. The phrase of our text — els 
b,TT<xvTi)<nv — is used in both these other instances, and nowhere 
else in the New Testament. The circumstances in each case 
define its meaning, showing it to signify, as Alford says, " meet- 
ing one who is approaching, not merely meeting with a person." 



THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH. 243 

transfigured Bride of Christ, go forth at the 
sound of the trumpet to meet the Bridegroom 
upon the suburbs of our globe, to attend Him 
earthward. 

Triumphal entry, indeed ! Earth, that once 
rejected her Lord, and sent Him back alone to 
heaven with five wounds upon His person, will 
furnish a majestic convoy for His return. " The 
glorious company of the apostles, the noble army 
of martyrs, the Holy Church throughout all the 
world," — these, whom the world knew not, even 
as it knew Him not, now raised and transfig- 
ured, will constitute an innumerable white-robed 
retinue to attend Him onward as He comes at 
last to accomplish the restitution of all things. 
And yet, so far as we can read the outlines of 
prophecy, we infer that there will be a pause in 
the march of this descending procession, — how 
long we do not conjecture, — while the advent 
judgments are visited upon Christendom. For 
observe in the prophet Isaiah that, following the 
summons of the dead, "Awake and sing, ye that 
dwell in the dust," there is the gracious call : 
"Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, 
and sJint thy doors about thee ; hide thyself, as it 
zvere, for a little moment, until the indignation be 
overpast. For, bcJwld, the Lord comet h out of His 
place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their 



244 ECCE VENIT. 



iniquity : the earth also shall disclose Jier blood, 
and shall no more cover her slain" (Isaiah xxvi. 
20, 21). As Noah was hidden in the ark when 
the judgment of the flood came upon the earth ; 
as the disciples, being forewarned by Christ, were 
sheltered in the hill-top of Pella, beyond Jordan, 
during the bloody siege in which Jerusalem per- 
ished, — so shall it be with those who are ac- 
counted worthy to escape the judgments poured 
out upon apostate Christendom. They shall be 
wrapped away in a sheltering pavilion of cloud, 
and hidden in some angel - guarded retreat on 
high, where the apostle's word shall be fulfilled to 
them : "And to you who are troubled, rest with 
?is, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from 
heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, 
taking vengeance on them that know not God 
and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ " (2 Thess. i. 7, 8). 

As to the deep questions of when ? and how ? 
connected with this transporting theme, we must 
not speak dogmatically. We get suggestive hints, 
however, from type and parallel, as well as from 
literal prophecy. " Enoch, the seventh from Adam, 
prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord 
cometh with ten thousand of His saints " (Jude 
14). He not only prophesied, but was himself a 
prophecy, — a literal prototype of those who shall 



THE TRANSLATION OE THE CHURCH 245 

be translated and not see death. As he was the 
"seventh from Adam," these raptured ones, we 
expect, will belong to the seventh millennium 
from creation ; and as the history of his change 
is condensed into these brief words, " And he was 
not, for God took him" so will theirs be. Um 
heralded and unnoted by the great busy world, 
so far as we can judge, will be this transaction. 
" Behold, I come as a thief ! " says our Lord. 
Not one of the sleeping household saw the mid^ 
night robber as he crept in and snatched the jew- 
els, and silently stole away. " And they shall be 
mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when 
I make up my jewels" (Mai. iii. 17). But the 
world will not know its loss until they are gone, 
the wheat gathered in and the tares left ; the 
jewels snatched away and the casket remaining. 
Then, at last, will they " discern between the 
righteous and the wicked, between him that serv- 
eth God and him that serveth Him not," as the 
day has now come that burns as an oven, "in 
which all that do wickedly shall be stubble," and 
the Lord sits "as a refiner and purifier of sil- 
ver." True, it is written that "the trumpet shall 
sound" at the ushering in of this great transac- 
tion ; but as the outer world has not heard the 
Apocalyptic trumpets as they have successively 
sounded, they may not hear " the sound of the 



246 ECCE VENIT. 



last trump." True, it is said also, that "the 
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a 
shout;" but this Kekevafia, or summons, may be 
only for the ears of the faithful, who, like a re- 
treating army, shall now be silently withdrawn 
from a judgment-doomed Christendom. 

And yet, upon this whole question of a secret 
rapture, we would speak with reserve, knowing 
that there are scriptures which give a different 
impression. But the event itself, hidden or man- 
ifest, is a most inspiring one in the influence 
which it carries. "The translation of Enoch," 
says Dr. Owen, " is a divine testimony that the 
body itself is capable of eternal life." And this 
transaction, like Peter's vision, has been thrice 
repeated, — in the Patriarchal age by Enoch ; in 
the Prophetic age by Elijah ; and in the Gospel 
age by Christ, — that we might not forget the 
lesson which it teaches. 1 With such a vision 
before our eyes, we should cease talking of the 
immortality of the soul, as though we knew not 

1 " Xot infrequently we substitute for the fullness of the Chris- 
tian creed the purely philosophical conception of an immortality 
of the sou], which destroys, as we shall see hereafter, the idea 
of the continuance of our distinct personal existence. Nothing 
is more common than to hear it assumed that the soul is the 
whole self. Yet nothing can be more clear upon reflection than 
that the only self of which we are conscious is made up of soul 
and body." — Westcott, Gospel of the Resurrection, pp. 6, 138. 



THE TRANSLATION OF THE CHURCH 247 

that God had provided some better thing for us. 
It is a lamentable apostasy from Paulism to Pla- 
tonism to substitute the hope of being " un- 
clothed " for that of being "clothed upon." 

Let philosophers dream of a naked immortality 
as man's highest estate in the life to come, but 
we will be content with nothing less than God's 
full provision of this mortal putting on immortal- 
ity. Therefore the conception of the body as the 
spirit's clog and prison-house should find no place 
in a Christian eschatology. It may, indeed, some- 
times be so in our present fallen and disordered 
condition. But the transfiguration will forever 
abolish such an anomaly, giving us a winged body 
in the place of a weighted spirit. If heathen 
moralism spoke the best it knew in the famous 
saying of Plotinus, that "he was thankful he was 
not tied to an immortal body," let not Christianity 
fail to speak the best it knows in the rejoicing of 
its disciples that they shall be untied, indeed, 
from this mortal, but only to be translated in an 
immortal body : " They shall mount up with wings 
as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; they 
shall walk and not faint." 



VI. 

THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 

The bridal relationship of the Church to her 
Lord is so profound an idea that we are not sur- 
prised to find its roots deeply embedded in the 
history and prophecy and poetry of the Old Tes- 
tament. Not to dwell upon the typical fore- 
shadowings of this truth contained in the story of 
Abraham's servant seeking a bride for Isaac, and 
of Jacob's seven years' service for Rachel ; and 
not to enlarge upon the gracious words of Jehovah 
to His people, " I will betroth them unto Me for- 
ever; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the 
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee," — we 
find in the Canticles the most complete and vivid 
setting forth of this conception. The central idea 
of the Song of Solomon is the same as that of the 
Apocalypse. According to Ewald, the commen- 
tator, who has given the most subtle analysis of 
this exquisite poem, the plot is this : " On the 
one hand, a king in all the splendors of his glory, 
transported with admiration, overflowing with 
passion ; on the other, the poor and simple shep- 
herd to whom the Shulamite has plighted her 



THE MARK r AGE OF THE LAMB. 249 

faith ; the former present, the latter absent ; the 
maiden called to decide freely between these two 
rivals. Such is the conflict in all its moral 
grandeur." 

Translating Oriental poetry into Apocalyptic 
symbolism, the Book of Revelation yields us the 
same conception. 1 Immanuel, the Shepherd 
Bridegroom, feeding His flock in Paradise, is ever 
sending word to His espoused Church on earth, 
"Behold, I come quickly." But she, in her long 
waiting, is constantly solicited and wooed by 
royal suitors — purple and gold and precious 
stones being offered her — to withdraw her heart 
from her heavenly Consort, and to accept a 
throne with the kings of the earth. The harlot 
bride, a fallen daughter of God, clothed with 
scarlet and decked with jewels, and living in for- 
nication with the rulers of this world, appears 
upon the scene, hating and hunting this unsullied 
spouse of Christ and driving her into exile. But 
in spite of all these trials of her faith on the one 
hand, and all these solicitations of kings and 
these proffers of Solomonic wealth and splendor 
on the other, her heart is still true to her absent 

1 "The Seer 
That, ere he died, saw all the grievous times 
Of the fair Bride — who with the lance and nails 
Was won," — Dante. 



ECCE VENIT. 



Lord, and her noble answer is, " Many waters 
cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown 
it ; if a man would give all the substance of his 
house for love it would be utterly contemned" 
(Cant. viii. 7). 

And yet the trial is one of intense and pro- 
tracted severity. Her Lord delays His return 
long beyond her expectation ; and the world 
mocks at her bridal hope, incredulously asking, 
"Where is the sign of His coming?" Beside, it 
is an invisible and far-off Lover to whom her 
heart is plighted, one who appears only in visions 
of hope, and "who in His sublime austerity 
scorns to use any sensuous means for attracting 
His people to Himself." In a word, her choice 
must be between an earthly Solomon, crowned 
with present glory and honor, and the Beloved 
whom the world has rejected, and who now stands 
without, knocking, His head wet with the dews 
of the night. " Sometimes He comes down and 
manifests Himself to the eyes of her faith. She 
sees Him as in a dream ; she delights herself 
spiritually with His presence, — then suddenly 
He vanishes. And then once more she is alone, 
carrying on the contest with Solomon, who draws 
near in all his pomp, and tries to cast his spell 
upon her. But she remains faithful to Him who 
is invisible ; she sees the moment approaching in 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 251 

which, the true love of her God having won the 
victory in her heart over all the arts of the se- 
ducer, she will be fetched away by Him, and — 
more fortunate in this respect than the Shulamite 
herself — will be able to follow Him to those 
spiced mountains where He pastures His flock 
amongst the lilies." 1 

That moment has now come ; the Bridegroom 
appears in the clouds of heaven to take His be- 
trothed one to Himself; and this is "the mar- 
riage of the Lamb." 

For mark the significant fact, that the Church 
is only affianced to Christ as yet, not married. 
" / have espoused you to one husband that I may 
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" writes 
Paul to the Corinthians, speaking by the Holy 
Ghost. All through the time of His absence 
"the Spirit and the Bride say, Come." But not 
until He appears in glory, and translates the 
Church, does the Bride become the wife : "Come 
hither and I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb 's 
wife." The convent language, therefore, in which 
the veiled nun is declared to be "wedded to 
Christ," is entirely foreign to the teaching of 
Scripture. For these holy nuptials are not with 
the individual, but with the whole Church, and 
therefore they cannot be consummated till all the 

1 Godetj Studies on the Old Testament, p. 329. 



252 ECCE VENIT. 



faithful — the quick and the dead — are brought 
into one company. As long as the Saviour is 
still absent from His people, it is the Church's 
fast-day, not her feast-day. " Can the children 
of the bride-chamber fast while the Bridegroom 
is with them ? As long as they have the Bride- 
groom with them they cannot fast. But the days 
will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken 
away from them ; then shall they fast, in those 
days" (Mark ii. 19, 20). This describes the pres- 
ent attitude of the Church, — one of patient 
waiting and chastened sobriety " till He come." 
As often as she breaks the bread and drinks 
the cup, she may say to her Lord : " Thou pre- 
parest a table before me in tlie presence of mine 
enemies" But not yet are His words fulfilled to 
her : " That ye may eat and drink at My table, in 
My kingdom" All attempts at premature wed- 
lock with Christ, by making the communion a 
feast of His "real presence," instead of a fast for 
His real absence, does violence to that virgin- 
instinct of the Church which knows that there 
can be no true nuptials until the Bridegroom 
comes, as there can be no real reign of the saints 
until the King appears. 

For where is the true Bride of Christ at this 
time ? Before the face of her enemy she has 
" fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 253 

prepared of God, that they should feed her there, 
a thousand two hundred and threescore days " 
(Rev. xii. 6). The time of the Harlot's enthrone- 
ment is the time of the Bride's exile ; while the 
one is sharing a crown with the princes of this 
world, who crucified the Lord of glory, the other 
is sharing rejection with Him whom the world 
knew not. What pathetic sorrows are hers dur- 
ing all this wilderness period ! Because she will 
not be seduced from her bridal affection, all man- 
ner of opprobrium is heaped upon her. Even 
the watchmen, when they find her, smite her 
and wound her, and the keepers of the walls take 
away her veil from her. But in spite of all vio- 
lence and scorn of men, her heart is with the 
absent Bridegroom, saying : " I charge you, O 
daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved, 
that ye tell Him that I am sick of love." 

" My heart is with Him on the throne, 
And ill can brook delay ; 
Each moment listening for His voice : 
' Rise up and come away.' " 

But now the long hoped-for consummation has 
arrived. The cry, " Behold, the Bridegroom com- 
eth, go ye out to meet Him," sounds upon the 
air. She who kept her garments unspotted from 
the world is ready to be married, and stands 
clothed in her wedding vesture : she, also, who 



254 ECCE VENJT. 



lived wantonly with the kings of the earth, is 
ready to be condemned, and stands "arrayed in 
purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold 
and precious stones." Hardly has the "Alleluia" 
over the judgment of "the great Harlot which 
did corrupt the earth with her fornication " died 
away, before another is heard : "Alleluia, for the 
Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad, 
and rejoice, and give honor to Him : for the 
marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath 
made herself ready" (Rev. xix. 6, 7). It is the 
hour of blissful fruition for the waiting Bride : 
" Who is this that comet Ji up from the wilderness 
leaning upon Iter beloved?" (Cant. viii. 5.) Who, 
indeed, but she whose countenance was often 
bedewed with tears, whose feet were often torn 
with the thorns of the desert through which her 
enemies pursued her ? But now the reproach of 
her widowhood is taken away, the bridal veil is 
upon her face, and the nuptial joy is in her 
heart. 

The end of the Redeemer's spousal love is at 
last made manifest : " Husbands, love your wives, 
even as Christ also loved the Church and gave 
Himself for it," writes the apostle. And to what 
purpose was this divine affection? "That He 
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing 
of water by the word ; " this is what he is now 



THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 255 

accomplishing by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. 
"That He might present it to Himself, a glorious 
Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such 
thing, but that it should be holy and without 
blemish" (Eph. v. 25-27): this is what He is 
yet to accomplish by the ministry of His second 
coming. How striking the language ! " Himself 
to Himself," — avrbs eauro", — " Christ permits 
neither attendants nor paranymphs to present 
the Bride; He alone presents, He receives." 1 
And He gives her to Himself in completed sanc- 
tification and transfigured beauty. St. Paul was 
jealous over the Corinthian Christians, that he 
"might present them as a chaste virgin to Christ." 
But Immanuel receives this virgin not only as 
chaste, but as chastened ; not only as sanctified 
through trial, but as at last glorified through rap- 
ture. Often she may have been tempted to mur- 
mur at the hardship of her lot, and the severity 
of her wilderness portion. But all this is not 
worthy to be compared with the glory that is 
now revealed in her as she stands at the Bride- 
groom's side, and hears Him saying to her : " I 
remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, 
the love of thine espousal, when thou wentest 
after me in the wilderness, in a land that is not 
sown " (Jer. ii. 2, r. v.). 

1 Elliebtt. 



256 ECCE VENIT. 



And there is not only a presentation, but a 
manifestation, in which obscurity and obloquy 
give place to glory and honor. 

It has happened within our knowledge that a 
wealthy and cultivated gentleman became affi- 
anced to a maiden of the lowest and poorest con- 
dition. Because he had set his love upon her, he 
took her out of her poverty and ignorance, and 
sent her to a distant school to be educated and 
fitted for her appointed sphere. After years of 
discipline and preparation, he withdrew her from 
her retreat and brought her to his home, where 
a splendid reception was given her, and she was 
publicly introduced into the society in which she 
was henceforth to move as his wife. Precisely 
thus has Christ dealt with His Church, — sending 
her into long wilderness discipline to be trained 
for her heavenly associations. But now that the 
time of her humiliation is ended, He brings her 
forth to receive her visible manifestation and 
royal dowry. Whereas she has "esteemed the 
reproach of Christ as greater riches than the 
treasures of Egypt," now is manifested in her 
" what is the riches of the glory of His inheri- 
tance in the saints ; " and whereas she has been 
counted "the offscouring of all things" for His 
sake, she is now exalted before the eyes of men 
and angels with Him who has come " to be glori- 






THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB. 257 

fied in His saints, and to be admired in all them 
that believe." In a word, the Bride who has 
shared her Lord's rejection now shares His 
throne as the wife of the Lamb, the Queen-con- 
sort of the King of kings. Here is the crown- 
ing joy of the redeemed. He and His are no 
more twain ; but one; the " little while" of their 
separation is at last swallowed up in the "forever 
with the Lord." They see His face; His name 
is in their foreheads ; they hear His voice : " Eat, 
O friends : drink, yea, drink abundantly, O be- 
loved." " Blessed are they which are called unto 
the marriage supper of the Lamb." 



VII. 

THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 

The first resurrection and the rapture of the 
saints have carried our contemplation heaven- 
ward ; but it is now recalled to what is passing 
on the earth. The one transaction is the exact 
reverse of the other. The Virgin Bride is called 
upward to the marriage supper of the Lamb ; the 
apostate Spouse of Christ is now cast down and 
publicly divorced by her long dishonored Lord. 
The punishment meted out to her — " These 
shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate 
and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her 
with fire" (Rev. xvii. 16) — is according to a very 
ancient law : " And the daughter of any priest, 
if she profane herself by playing the whore, she 
profaneth her father : she shall be burnt with fire" 
(Lev. xxi. 9). This fallen daughter of God has 
persisted in her fornication with the kings of the 
earth for centuries ; and they with whom she has 
glorified herself and lived deliciously now turn 
against her and become the providential instru- 
ments of her destruction, saying to the Almighty : 



THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 259 

" Thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot : 
bring her forth and let her be burnt " (Gen. 
xxxviii. 24). Graphic and lifelike to the highest 
degree are the delineations of the papal apostasy. 
As the true Church of Christ is set forth under 
the double similitude of a bride and of a city, so 
is the false. And one has only closely to compare 
the details of the harlot's photograph in Rev. xvii. 
with the lurid painting of Babylon the Great in 
Rev. xviii. to perceive that the subject is the same 
in each. The scarlet and purple, the gold and 
precious stones and pearls, are found in both de- 
scriptions : the same sin of wantonness with the 
kings of the earth ; the same indictment of per- 
secuting God's saints ; and the same doom of 
being "utterly burned with fire" belong to each. 
Only in the first portrayal the kings of the earth 
are seen executing the divine vengeance upon 
the apostate bride ; while in the second they are 
represented as bewailing and lamenting her 
doom, even as a profligate will sometimes weep 
and mourn over his murdered paramour. 

This judgment seems to be executed in two 
stages, gradual and sudden, harmonizing with the 
two stages of the judgment of the Man of Sin as 
foretold in Thessalonians : "Whom the Lord shall 
consume with the breath of His mouth, and destroy 
with the brightness of His coming." 



260 ECCE VENIT. 



The first process is described thus : " And the 
ten horns which thou sawest and the beast, these 
shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate 
and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn 
her with fire" (Rev. xvii. 16). The beast here 
must be the same which carries the harlot ; it 
cannot be an individual Antichrist, therefore, else 
we should have the grotesque figure of the woman 
riding upon a man, a symbolical monstrosity of 
which revelation could not be guilty. Besides, 
there is no precedent in Scripture for making a 
beast signify an individual man. If Daniel gives 
the key to Revelation, as is generally admitted, 
a beast means a dynasty or civil government. It 
is the body of the beast, the Papal Empire, with 
its ten kingdoms, including rulers, people, terri- 
tory, and dominion, that is here evidently meant. 
These that have long supported the harlot church 
now turn and rend her. It is useless to say that 
by identifying the papacy with the beast, this 
verse would compel the conclusion that the 
Roman Pope finally destroys the Roman Church. 
There is a Head and a Body of the true Church ; 
the Head is called The Christ, 6 Xpio-Tos (i Cor. 
xi. 13), and the Body is called The Christ, 6 X/hotcs 
(1 Cor. xii. 12) ; but it does not follow, therefore, 
that when it is said that " Christ loved the Church 
and gave Himself for it," we must conclude that 



THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 261 

He loved Himself and gave Himself for Him- 
self ; for though Christ and the Church are mys- 
tically one, their actions and offices are separable. 
So the papacy, as head of the Roman Empire in 
its ten-kingdomed condition, is called the beast 
(Rev. xiii. 4, 5, 6) ; and the empire itself, as the 
body, is called the beast (Rev. xvii. 3). But 
though symbolically one, their actions and career 
are distinguishable. It is clearly the body of the 
beast that is figured as carrying and supporting 
the harlot, — the Roman Empire under the sway 
of the Roman Church, the empire supporting the 
Church, and the Church ruling the empire. But 
when the consuming judgments begin, this is 
changed. Just what was predicted, we have lived 
to see, — the kingdoms once subject to the papacy 
snapping their concordats and alliances, till the 
woman's bit and bridle are utterly broken ; those 
kingdoms turning upon her and stripping her of 
her endowments, rejecting her authority, and 
tearing away her territory. So we have beheld 
it wonderfully come to pass in these latter days. 
Events often constitute an indisputable exegesis. 
So long ago as a. d. 1607, Brightman, the com- 
mentator, " searching what and what manner of 
time " the Spirit signified by this prophecy, con- 
cluded that about a. d. 1800 the dismantlement 
of the Roman Church would begin. In August, 



262 ECCE VENIT. 



1797, the French ambassador in Rome wrote to 
Napoleon : " Discontent is at its height in the 
papal states ; the government will fall to pieces 
of itself. We are making it consume by a slow 
fire. It will soon crumble into dust." The next 
year the papal government was overthrown, and 
an infidel democracy reared on its ruins. " The 
churches and convents," says Alison, " the 
palaces of the cardinals and nobility, were laid 
waste. The spoliation exceeded all that the 
Goths and Vandals had effected." x A further 
exhibition of the same process of consumption we 
have witnessed, especially in Italy and in France, 
since the recent loss of the pope's temporal 
power. 

Then follows a subsequent stage in the retribu- 
tion, when the awful cry breaks upon our ears : 
"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great J '" It is 
history repeating itself. Every age has ended in 
judgment, and so shall the present dispensation 
close. As apostate Judaism met its doom in the 
destruction of Jerusalem ; so apostate Christen- 
dom expiates its sentence in the overthrow of 
mystical Babylon. This destruction will fall, we 
believe, upon the literal city of seven hills, as the 
visible centre and capital of the apostasy. What 
other systems beside the papal may be involved 

1 Closing Days of Christendom, Wale, p. 362. 



THE JUDGMENT OE CHRISTENDOM. 263 

in the judgment is a most solemn question to be 
pondered. It is plainly intimated that the mother 
has daughters, and therefore that Babylon the 
Great has outlying suburbs which are in fellow- 
ship with her. Let him that readeth understand. 
The extent of this judgment needs to be carefully 
considered, since some would discredit the plain 
interpretation which we follow, by declaring that 
it implies the consigning of every subject of the 
pope to perdition, as it is declared that " if any 
man worship the beast and his image, and receive 
his mark in his forehead or in his hand," he shall 
be consigned to everlasting punishment. But 
here the analogy of previous judgments throws 
striking light. Before the doom of fire and brim- 
stone fell upon Sodom, the warning was sounded, 
— " Up ! get thee out of this place, for the Lord 
will destroy this city;" and heeding the call, some 
were found sheltered in little Zoar ere the burn- 
ing rain descended. So, likewise, before Jerusa- 
lem was destroyed, the Saviour's previous admo- 
nition was enforced : " Then let them which be in 
Judea flee to the mountains ; " and the holy seed 
gained refuge from the awful slaughter in the 
hilltop of Pella. 

The Apocalypse predicts a similar warning be- 
fore the fall of Babylon : " Come out of her, my 
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins." 



264 ECCE VENIT. 



This summons, we believe, is synchronous, or 
nearly so, with the descending of the Lord in 
glory (Rev. xviii. 4). We conclude this because 
the Church is summoned to exercise judgment, — 
" Reward Iter even as she rewarded you, and 
double unto Jier according to her works " — which 
she is everywhere forbidden to do in her present 
suffering state, but which she is to do at the 
time of her reign and judgment with Christ at 
His coming in glory. Before the sentence goes 
forth, " Babylon the Great is fallen," the gracious 
call of separation will have been sounded : " Come 
forth, my people, out of her," and then " they that 
are Christ's at His coming," whether hitherto in 
Babylon or without her, whether in their graves 
or living on the earth, will be caught up to meet 
the Lord in the air, where, standing with the 
Lamb upon Mount Zion with the hundred and 
forty -four thousand having the Father's name 
written in their foreheads, they shall see afar off 
the doom of such as persisted in worshiping the 
beast and wearing his name upon their brows. 
As some true saints of God have been found in 
Rome during all her history, so we doubt not it 
will be to the end. But overwhelming doom 
will fall upon such as persevere in their idola- 
tries after this last warning cry shall have been 
sounded. If then "any man is worshiping the 



THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 265 

beast, and receiving his mark on his forehead or 
upon his hand," "the same shall drink of the 
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out 
without mixture into the cup of his indignation " x 
(Rev. xiv. 9). 

Hark the song of exultation breaking forth 
from heaven ! A great voice of much people — 
of myriads whose blood the harlot drank — is 
now heard saying: "Alleluia! salvation, and glory, 
and honor, and power unto the Lord our God. 
For true and righteous are His judgments ; for 
He hath judged the great whore which did cor- 
rupt the earth with her fornication, and hath 
avenged the blood of His servants at her hand " 
(Rev. xix. 2). And immediately a triumphal pro- 
cession is seen moving forth from the direction 
whence comes the song : " And I saw heaven 
opened, and behold a white horse ; and He that 
sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and 



" Covetous Babylon of wrath divine, 
By its worst crimes, has drained the full cup now. 

Her idols shall be shattered in the dust, 
Her proud towers, enemies of heaven, be hurled, 
Her wardens into flames and exile thrust. 
Fair souls and friends of virtue shall the world 
Possess in peace ; and we shall see it made 
All gold, and fully its old works displayed." 

Petrarch, 1304- 1374. 



266 ECCE VENIT. 



in righteousness doth He judge and make war" 
(Rev. xix. u). This majestic rider we met at 
the very opening of Apocalyptic history (vi. 2), 
but then He was going forth in peaceful con- 
quest : " And I saw, and behold a white horse, 
and He that sat upon him had a bow," — " Thou 
didst ride upon thine horses, upon thy chariots of 
salvation : thy bow was made quite bare " (Hab. 
iii. 9), "and a crown was given unto Him." This 
is the " Stephanos" the crown which in Scripture 
is so repeatedly set before the Christian as the 
prize for his spiritual overcoming, and which is 
fitly worn by Him who in the days of His flesh 
could say, " I have overcome the world." "And 
He went forth conquering and in order to con- 
quer" ■ — not only to effect the present victories of 
redemption, but to win the ultimate sovereignty 
of the world. 

This final conquest has now arrived ; for as 
the white-horse rider comes forth from heaven, 
we behold, " and on His head were many crowns." 
Not the Stephanos now, but the diadema is the 
symbol of His supremacy. The kingdom of the 
world has become the kingdom of our Lord and 
of his Christ ; and all the crowns of all the kings 
have passed over upon His brow. The long suc- 
cession of world-wide monarchies which we be- 
held in Daniel's vision has intervened ; the stone 



THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 267 

cut out of the mountain without hands now 
smites the image upon its feet, and itself fills the 
whole world. How striking the picture of the 
final transfer of earth's sovereignty to Immanuel ! 
To Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the first 
in this line of universal monarchs, God said : 
" Thou, O king, art a king of kings " (Dan. ii. 37). 
Now that this bloody line terminates in the over- 
throw of mystical Babylon — whose sovereign, 
the pope, has long arrogated both temporal and 
ecclesiastical supremacy — Messiah takes up both 
the successions and also takes the long abused 
title attaching thereto: "And He hath on His 
vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of 
kings and Lord of lords" (Rev. xix. 16). 

It is necessary here to explain how this judg- 
ment of Christendom is related to that of the 
world as a whole. This will only be possible by 
giving careful attention to the law of prophetic 
perspective which rules so constantly in the di- 
vine predictions. That wondrous judgment par- 
able of our Lord, recorded in the twenty-fifth 
of Matthew, seems to be opened out by later rev- 
elations so as to have an age-long reach. Resur- 
rection and judgment are counterparts ; and as 
the rising of the dead, foretold by Christ in the 
Gospel of John (v. 28), though seeming to be a 
simultaneous event for the righteous and for the 



268 ECCE VENIT. 



wicked, — " The hour is coming in the which all 
that are in the graves shall hear His voice and 
shall come forth : they that have done good, unto 
the resurrection of life ; and they that have done 
evil, unto the resurrection of damnation " — is 
shown in the later Revelation of John to take 
place in two stages a thousand years apart : so 
the judgments in which these respective resurrec- 
tions issue are separated by an entire millennium 
Laying the prophecy of the xxvth of Matthew 
alongside this of the vth of John, we judge that 
they exactly harmonize ; that the time when the 
Son of man shall " sit upon the throne of His 
glory " is the whole millennial period ; that the 
time when the righteous dead shall hear the King 
say unto them, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world," is at the coming of 
Christ in the beginning of the millennium, which 
is " the resurrection of life : " that time when the 
unrighteous dead shall hear the sentence, " De- 
part from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire," is at 
the close of the millennium, which is " the resur- 
rection of condemnation." While this is so, we 
should not err in saying that in one sense the 
judgment of the righteous and of the wicked is 
simultaneous. For since resurrection is the great 
declarative act of justification, the coming forth 



MH 



THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 269 

of the righteous from the tomb at the advent of 
Christ is their open acquittal and vindication be- 
fore the universe ; while the non-resurrection of 
the wicked is their silent condemnation, — which 
silent condemnation, however, is to be made pub- 
lic and visible at the second resurrection and the 
great white-throne judgment at the end of the 
millennium. 

It has been maintained that the scene in the 
xxvth of Matthew is strictly and only a judgment 
of the living nations. It is clearly this ; but the 
question is, whether this prophetic picture of our 
Lord is not a composite photograph comprehend- 
ing in a single view all the stages and subjects 
of the judgment. 

While acknowledging the exceeding difficulty 
of harmonizing all the texts relating to this sub- 
ject, we conceive of the great transaction thus : 
judgment begins at the house of God when the 
Master of the house returns in the clouds of 
heaven. Instantly there is a separation of the 
wheat from the tares ; of the sheep from the 
goats ; of the Bride from the harlot. By resur- 
rection and translation, the faithful living and 
the faithful dead are instantly brought into one 
company in the skies ; by non-resurrection and 
devastating judgments, the apostate dead and the 
apostate living are brought into the other com- 



270 ECCE VENIT. 



pany in Hades. Thus, in a moment, in the 
4~ twinkling of an eye, judgment is pronounced for 
both classes. 

Now the reward of the righteous begins. 
That manifestation predicted in the words, " For 
we must all appear before the judgment-seat of 
Christ, that every one may receive the things 
done in his body according to that which he hath 
done, whether it be good or bad," at last takes 
place. This is not a judgment of believers as to 
the question of life or death ; into such judgment 
it is distinctly declared they do not enter : " Ver- 
ily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My 
word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath 
everlasting life, and shall not come into condem- 
nation," — KpCa-iv, judgment) — " but is passed from 
death unto life " (John v. 24). The first resur- 
— rection is itself the award of life ; and they who 
now stand in their risen and immortal bodies 
have passed beyond all possible inquisition con- 
cerning the inheritance of life eternal. But into 
strict and solemn investigation concerning their 
works they do now come ; for at length is that 
Scripture fulfilled : " Every man's work shall be 
made manifest ; for the day shall declare it, be- 
cause it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire 
shall try every man's work of what sort it is " (1 
Cor. iii. 13). Doubtless there will stand before 



THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 271 

the Lord in that day many who are saved but 
unrewarded, redeemed by the precious blood of 
Christ, but not recompensed at the resurrection 
of the just ; their works burned up as worthless, 
but themselves saved so as by fire (1 Cor. iii. 15). 
But to such as have borne the cross and endured 
hardness, this is the time of reward : " Behold, I 
come quickly and my reward is with me to give 
to every man according as his work shall be." 
And this recompense we believe will consist in 
no vague and transcendental joys of song, and 
rapture, and repose. That repeated strain in the 
parable which follows that of the ten virgins — 
" Well done, good and faithful servant : thou hast 
been faithful over a few things, / will make thee 
— ruler over many things' 1 — seems to indicate the 
nature of the saints' inheritance. Reigning with 
Christ over the earth throughout the millennium, 
their rank in His manifested kingdom will be 
according to their fidelity during the time of His 
absence. In the judgment of the nations which 
now follows, they will be associated with their 
Lord, — " Know ye not that the saints shall judge 
the world?" (1 Cor. vi. 2) — and in their nearness 
to Him in honor and authority will consist the 
greatness of their reward. It is not necessary to 
believe that the saints' reward will be altogether 
earthly or civil, but nevertheless there is a mean- 



272 ECCE VENIT. 



ing which must not be spiritualized away in the 
beatitude of our Lord : " Blessed are the meek, 
for they shall inherit the earth " (Matt. v. 5) ; and 
in the award of the nobleman returning from a 
far country to set up his kingdom : " Well, thou 
good servant: because thou hast been faithful in 
a very little, have tJwic authority over ten cities" 
(Luke xix. 17). 

At the end of the millennium occurs the sec- 
ond resurrection. So far as there is a quicken- 
ing of "the rest of the dead " — those left behind 
at the sound of the advent trumpet a thousand 
years before — it is strictly a " resurrection unto 
judgment." Here, in the vision of the great white 
throne which follows, we find " the book of life " 
opened, and "whosoever was not found written 
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." 
Those whose names were in the book have 
already been living and reigning with Christ a 
thousand years ; therefore, unless we think of 
them as now leaving their thrones and crowns, 
and coming before the bar of God to be tried for 
their lives, we cannot conceive of their being the 
subjects of this solemn inquisition : and as we 
have already seen, the Scripture declares that 
they will not be, since they have already passed 
from death unto life, and come not into judgment. 

But, holding that the righteous and unright- 



THE JUDGMENT OF CHRISTENDOM. 273 

cous still die during the millennium, it appears 
that there will be saints as well as sinners in the 
second resurrection. Hence there will be for 
such a judgment of works when the assize of the 
great white throne and of Him that sits on it shall 
open. How solemnly, therefore, it reads : " And 
the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and 
death and hell delivered up the dead which were 
in them, and they were judged every man accord- 
ing to their works ! " (Rev. xxi. 13.) 

Such seems to be the order as we gaze through 
the long and solemn perspective of the judgment 
scene ; but if our readers shall put a question- 
mark against many of our conclusions, we shall 
not be surprised. There is a massing of shad- 
ows and a concentration of mystery about the 
whole scene which invest it with unutterable awe. 
We are willing to leave the shadows unlifted and 
the mystery unsolved, if, " knowing therefore the 
terror of the Lord," we may "persuade men." 



VIII. 

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 

There is a fragment of Jewish legend that has 
floated down to us, which represents two venera- 
ble rabbis as musing among the ruins of Jerusa- 
lem after its destruction. One is giving way to 
unrestrained lamentation, saying : " Alas ! alas ! 
this is the end of all. Our beautiful city is no 
more, our Temple is laid waste, our brethren are 
driven away into captivity." The other, with 
greater cheerfulness, replies : " True ; but let us 
learn from the verity of God's judgments, which 
we behold about us, the certainty of His mercies. 
He hath said, ' I will destroy Jerusalem,' and we 
see that He hath done it. But hath He not also 
said, ' I will rebuild Jerusalem,' and shall we not 
believe Him ? " 

This is a correct method of reasoning, and one 
which we would commend to Gentile doctors as 
well as to Hebrew rabbis. A literal fulfillment 
of threatenings upon Israel argues a literal fulfill- 
ment of promises. The sorrowful and ill-starred 
history of the Jewish race since the dispersion 
has been the theme of constant reflection among 



■■^h 



THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 275 

thoughtful men. It is not merely the fact of 
their unparalleled sufferings which has arrested 
attention, but the evidence of a providential 
method, if we may say so, running through those 
sufferings, the appearance of their history having 
been woven at every point to the pattern of some 
hidden decree. Persecution which would have 
blotted out any other nation seems in their 
case to have been so blended and tempered with 
divine preservatives, that, like that symbol of 
their Jehovah, the burning bush, they present the 
astonishing spectacle of a nation always girdled 
about with the fires of judgment, but never con- 
sumed. Scattered like dust to the four winds, 
they have yet preserved their national unity as 
firm and compact as a rock ; driven out of their 
land, and kept from it by an inexorable decree, 
they have beheld their supplanters guarding with 
scrupulous care their most sacred shrines, as 
though unconsciously waiting to surrender them 
back to them on the expiration of their lease ; so 
utterly homeless that they have had no city or 
foot of land for centuries which they could call 
their own, they have, nevertheless, been the 
bankers of the world, as though destined always 
to have on deposit the wealth needful for restor- 
ing the desolations of Zion, if the hour for such 
restoration were to come. This mingling of 



276 ECCE VENIT. 



mercy and misfortune in their career has consti- 
tuted the Jewish race the paradox and miracle 
of modern history. It has awakened a constant 
curiosity and speculation in the minds of the 
thoughtful as to their future. Incomparably dark 
as has been their history for eighteen hundred 
years, men have been constrained to see in that 
darkness the shadow of Jehovah's hand turned 
over them for their protection and preservation ! 
And in the very sharpness of the judgments that 
have overtaken them, not a few have discerned 
the presage of a future glory far surpassing any- 
thing in the past. 

Have we thought what an undertone of hope 
there is even in the divine condemnations of the 
Jews? The single word "until" constitutes a 
kind of epitomized prophecy of Israel's restora- 
tion. The picture which our Lord gives in the 
gospels of the destruction of the Holy City and 
the dispersion of the Jews is one of the darkest 
in all Scripture. What a massing of the shadows 
of doom ; what a crowding together of successive 
chapters of woe ! And yet, as we reach the mid- 
dle of that sentence which summarizes whole cen- 
turies of divine retribution, "Jerusalem shall be 
trodden of the Gentiles until the times of the 
Gentiles be fulfilled," we are conscious of a cer- 
tain powerful relief from the strain that has been 



■H^iHl 



THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 277 

put upon us. "Until" — amid the dense sur- 
rounding darkness, this one word fairly gleams 
with the promise of a better future for the suffer- 
ing race. It is only a hint, an intimation, that 
is given us ; but it is so pregnant with the hid- 
den light of hope, that it impels us instinctively 
to fix an end to the desolations of Zion. So in 
our Lord's pathetic farewell to the Temple, after 
His rejection, there is the same refrain, "Behold, 
your house is left unto you desolate ; " and, 
" Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me, 
until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is 
He that cometh in the name of the Lord." Until 
the time come, — here, certainly, is a flash of light 
upon the dark prediction of Israel's desertion. It 
is but a word, again ; but it is heavy with the 
burden of prophetic expectation. Next to the 
silence which says nothing contrary to our hope, 
the hint which barely breaks the silence in its 
favor is the most significant. And this is all we 
have here ; but how much is in it ! In St. Paul's 
discourse upon the hardening and healing of his 
people, like phraseology occurs. " Blindness in 
part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of 
the Gentiles be come in." Thus, again and 
again, this word " until " is heard, like a cadence, 
in the solemn strain of the Divine threatening, in 
which Jehovah's voice seems to drop, for a mo- 



278 ECCE VENIT. 



ment, from the stern tones of anger and impre- 
cation, to those of His "old love" and tender- 
ness. 1 

But let it not be supposed that we have in the 
New Testament only inspired hints and implica- 
tions concerning Israel's restoration. The elev- 
enth chapter of Romans is a compact and well- 
reasoned argument upon this theme, conducting 
us step by step from sorrowful premise to trium- 
phant conclusion. " Hath God cast away His 
people ? " is the question considered. " God hath 
not cast away His people whom He foreknew" 
is the conclusion reached. And this upon two 
grounds, — present fact and future fulfillment. 
Though the nation has been cut off, there is "a 



1 " O then that I 
Might live, and see the olive bear 
Her proper branches, which now lie 

Scattered each where, 
And without root and sap decay, 
Cast by the husbandman away, 

And sure it is not far ! 

" For surely He 
Who loved the world so as to give 
His only Sonne to make us free, 
Whose Spirit, too, doth mourn and grieve 
To see man lost, will, for old love, 
From your dark hearts this veil remove." 

Henry Vaughan, 1654. 



. 



THE RESTOKA TION OF ISRAEL. 279 

remnant, according to the election of grace" who 
have believed on Christ to their salvation, and 
therefore have been preserved in the favor and 
fellowship of God ; while, on the other hand, 
those remaining outside this remnant have been 
hardened : "the rest were blinded!' But concern- 
ing this rejected majority, there is hope, because 
of the sure covenant of God. And though, like 
the branches of an olive tree, they have been 
broken off, we are told, first, that " God is able to 
graff them in again;" and, a little after, "How 
mitcJi more shall these which be natural branches 
be graff ed into their own olive tree." Not only 
possibility, but certainty, of Israel's restoration 
is thus predicated. And the argument culminates 
in the grand conclusion, "And so all Israel shall 
be saved" — an elect and individual redemption 
at last succeeded by a national and complete re- 
demption. And this full recovery, it will be ob- 
served, is in connection with the second coming 
of Christ in glory. As it is written: "There 
shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall 
turn away ungodliness from Jacob." 1 

A typical man is often set before us in Scrip- 

1 " The passage cannot be understood merely to denote the 
first appearance of Messiah as Isaiah xi. ; but, in any case, the 
eschatological appearance of Jehovah is also conjoined in the 
Messiah." — Lange. 



280 ECCE VENIT. 



ture for. our clearer instruction in regard to great 
events. And such was Paul in relation to the 
final redemption of Israel. He says of himself, 
the " blasphemer and persecutor" of Christ: 
" Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that 
in Me first Christ Jesus might show forth all 
long-suffering, for a pattern of those who should 
hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life," — 

vTroTviruicriv tujv fxeWovroiV TTLCTTevuv, — not a?l ensaviple 

to, but a sample of, those who should afterwards 
believe unto salvation. By the manner of his 
conversion he was constituted a kind of first- 
fruits, or prototype, of the Jewish harvest. 
Whether or not in this passage he refers expli- 
citly to his kinsmen according to the flesh, we 
find, at least, that the circumstances of his own 
new birth were so unique as to constitute a 
special type. For, enumerating those by whom 
the Lord was seen after His resurrection, he 
says : " And last of all, as unto one born out of 
due time, He appeared to me also." By the vis- 
ible, glorious manifestation of Christ to his eyes, 
was this Hebrew of the Hebrews smitten with 
conviction ; by the indictment of the Redeemer's 
personal wounds — "I am Jesus of Nazareth, 
whom thou persecutest " — was he brought to 
repentance and confession. When he " could not 
see for the glory of that light," then was the veil 



THE RESTORATION- OF ISRAEL. 281 

taken away from his heart, so that he turned to 
the Lord in the profoundest penitence. 

"Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every 
-eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him, 
and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over 
Him" (Rev. i. 7, r. v.). If, with most expositors 
we must understand " the tribes " in this instance 
to mean the kindreds and peoples of the world, 
we cannot so interpret the Old Testament proph- 
ecy of which this is a quotation. In the profound 
mourning, so graphically pictured by Zechariah, 
in which " every family apart " is seen sobbing 
out an uncontrollable grief, the scene is, by gen- 
eral consent, in the Holy Land, and the subjects 
the house of Israel. And what has come to pass ? 
The bounds of another prophetic "until" have 
been attained for Jerusalem. " Upon the land of 
my people " God threatened thorns and briers, 
forsaken palaces, and deserted towers, " until the 
Spirit be poured out upon us from on high " (Is. 
xxxii. 15). That time has now been reached, and 
the word which God spoke by the mouth of 
Zechariah is fulfilled : "And I will pour upon the 
house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Je- 
rusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications : 
and they shall look upon Me, whom they have 
jicrccd, and mourn for Him, as one mourneth 
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for 



282 ECCE VENIT. 



Him, as one is in bitterness for his firstborn " 
(Zech. xii. 10). The point of departure at last 
becomes the point of return. The wounds of 
Jesus were the death sentence upon national Is- 
rael ; and now they become the source of life to 
that long-rejected people. For immediately upon 
the prediction of their mourning for Him whom 
they pierced, it is added : " In that day there 
shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, 
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and 
for uncleanness." 

Nationally or individually, there is but one way 
of salvation for Israel, — the way of the Cross; 
and one way of repentance, — a total reversal of 
attitude towards the Nazarene. The Jews cried 
out : "His blood be upon us and upon our chil- 
dren;" and for this whole age that blood has 
been crying out for vengeance against them. By 
their own repentance and faith must that pre- 
cious offering be turned from the blood of impre- 
cation to the blood of cleansing. "Not this man, 
but Barabbas" they said, when the awful alterna- 
tive was offered them ; and Barabbas, the mur- 
derer and robber, has swayed them with his dag- 
ger, and pillaged them of their wealth, even unto 
this day. "Not Barabbas, but this man" must be 
their penitent confession before this spoiling shall 
cease. " We have no king but Ccesar" was their 



THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 283 

answer when the appeal was made to them, 
"Will you crucify your King?" And Caesar 
after Caesar has crucified, enslaved, and outraged 
them till, as no other, they have become a nation 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief. This fatal 
choice must also be reversed, and instead of it 
the acclamation be raised : " Hosanna to the 
Son of David ! blessed is He that cometh in the 
name of the Lord ! " Indeed, recalling Christ's 
prediction, — " Ye shall not see Me henceforth, 
till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the 
name of the Lord" (Matt, xxiii. 39), — we must 
remember that He gives us the key-note of Is- 
rael's repentance in these words. They are part 
of the Jewish "Hallel" sung at the Passover. 
The strain which immediately precedes this ben- 
ediction is : " The stone which the builders reftcsed 
is become the Headstone of the corner. This is the 
day which the Lord hath made : we will rejoice 
and be glad in it" (Ps. cxviii. 22-25). How 
glorious this song of Israel's consummated res- 
toration ! And what a heightening of the dra- 
matic effect of that lurid picture of the overthrow 
of mystical Babylon, that, amid the rejoicing of 
the Church over the downfall of her great enemy, 
this "Hallel" is heard four times breaking in, as 
though Israel, too, were joining to celebrate the 
fall of the last and bloodiest form of Caesar's 



284 ECCE VENIT. 



kingdom, that from which both Christian and Jew 
have received their bitterest persecution ! (Rev. 
xix. i, 3, 4, 6.) 

As to the exact order of events connected with 
Israel's conversion and restoration, we must not 
speak too confidently. Some passages seem to 
make the Jews' repentance the occasion of the 
Lord's return, and others would appear to make 
the Lord's return the occasion of their repent- 
ance. Of the first kind is Peter's declaration to 
the crucifiers of Jesus : " Repent ye, therefore, 
and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, 
that so there may come seasons of refreshing 
from the presence of the Lord ; and that He may 
send the Christ who hath been appointed for yon, 
even Jesus, whom the heaven must receive until the 
times of tJie restoration of all things''' (Acts iii. 
19-21, r. v.). Here the Saviour's coming back 
is made contingent on the conversion of the 
Israelites ; while, in the prophecy of Zechariah, 
that appearing in glory seems to be the producing 
cause of the Jews' repentance. From all that we 
gather, we judge that both conclusions are true, 
— that Israel will regather in their land in un- 
belief, as they are now beginning to do ; that they 
will be brought into great tribulation through the 
assaults of enemies coming against them in siege ; 
that in their utmost extremity they will cry out 



THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 285 

for their Messiah ; and " then shall the Lord go 
forth and fight against those nations." His com- 
ing, however, will bring sorrow, as well as succor. 
" His feet shall stand in that day upon the Moimt 
of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem on the 
east." But those feet that bring deliverance will 
bring overwhelming conviction, as it is seen that 
they are the same that they once nailed to the 
cross. As He lifts up His hands for their help, 
" one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds 
in Thy hands ? Then He shall answer, Those with 
which I was wounded in the house of my friends " 
(Zech. xiii. 6 ; xiv. 4). Thus while He comes to 
bring salvation to a repenting people, His coming 
will add repentance to repentance, as it brings 
home their terrible crime against their Messiah, 
so that "all the tribes of the land shall wail 
because of Him." But what joy shall give place 
to that lamentation, after their sin is purged ! 
Now shall long-prostrate Jerusalem hear the sum- 
mons : " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and 
the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." 

The twin fact of Israel's restoration to God's 
favor is this of their restoration to their own land. 
To cite passages in proof of such restoration 
would be to quote whole chapters and entire 
books from the prophets, of whose writings this 
is the constant glowing burden. 



286 ECCE VENIT. 



This great consummation seems destined to 
occur in two principal stages, elective and na- 
tional. First, a few are represented as being 
brought upon ships from their scattered habita- 
tions (Is. xviii. ; lx. 9) : "I will take you one of 
a city, and two of a family ; and I will bring you 
to Zion " (Jer. iii. 14). These would appear to 
be a kind of first-fruits of the final restoration. 
And as sober judges of events see this gathering- 
out and gathering-home already taking place, it 
should be to us a sign and an earnest of the 
speedy realization of Israel's complete hope. Af- 
ter this partial restoration, we are led to expect 
the final and full regathering, a national move- 
ment, like the Exodus from Egypt, only far sur- 
passing that in glory and power (Jer. xxiii. 3-5 ; 
xxxi. 8, 9). 

This great restoration constitutes the true hope 
of the Israelite, as the return of the Lord does of 
the Christian. And it is very interesting to read, 
in the light of this fact, the closing chapters of 
the Old and of the New Testaments. In the one 
the promise is, "Behold, I will send y oil Elijah;" 
in the other, u Behold, I come quickly" To the 
prepared people of His Church He comes, that 
He may receive them into the place which He 
has gone to prepare; to His long -disobedient 
people, Israel, He sends the prophet, that He may 



THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 



287 



"turn the heart of the fathers to the children, 
and the heart of the children to their fathers." 
Accordingly, as for the Christian the commun- 
ion is commemorative and anticipative, so is the 
Passover for the Jew. The Lord's Supper, by 
its solemn formula, is ever repeating, "Till He 
come ; " and the Passover, with its vacant seat 
for Elijah, is ever saying, "Till Israel return." 
As the sprinkled blood and bitter herbs remind 
children and children's children of the Hebrew 
household how the Lord brought their fathers 
out of Egypt, they also recall evermore Jehovah's 
promises : " Therefore behold the days come, 
saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The 
Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel 
out of the land of Egypt ; but, The Lord liveth 
that brought up the children of Israel from the 
land of the north, and from all the lands whither 
He had driven them ; and I will bring them again 
into their land that I gave unto their fathers " 
(Jer. xvi. 14, 15). Nothing that has yet occurred 
can be said to have fulfilled this prediction of 
" bringing them again into their own land." If 
the contrary be affirmed, how can we explain the 
finality and perpetuity of this restoration as 
affirmed in several parallel texts ? " And I will 
plant them upon their land, and they shall no more 
be pulled tip out of their land which I have given 



ECCE VENIT. 



them, saith the Lord thy God" (Amos ix. 15 ; Jer. 
xxxi. 8-9 ; Ezek. xxxiv.-xxxvii.). And if any ask, 
" How can this be, considering the wide apos- 
tasy and practical surrender of these promises by 
such vast numbers of Israelites ? " we must an- 
swer : How can it fail to be, since Jehovah, who 
made this promise, cannot lie ? As though an- 
ticipating this incredulity of men, He has said, 
concerning the time when He makes a new cov- 
enant with His people, " to forgive their iniquity 
and remember their sin no more " : " Thus saith 
the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, 
and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars 
for a light by night, which divideth the sea when 
the waves thereof roar ; The Lord of Hosts is His 
name : If those ordinances depart from before 
Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also 
shall cease from being a nation before Me for- 
ever. Thus saith the Lord : If heaven above can 
be measured, and the foundations of the earth 
searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the 
seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith 
the Lord" (Jer. xxxi. 31-37). 

So great will be the glory of Israel's recovery, 
that the sorrow of His long rejection will seem 
as nought in comparison. Now will God comfort 
His people, saying : " For a small moment have I 
forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather 



THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. 



thee" (Is. liv. 7). Instead of the sentence: "I 
have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the 
hands of her enemies," to His people, resisting no 
longer, He will say : " For as the girdle cleaveth 
to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave 
unto Me the whole house of Israel, and the whole 
house of Judah, saith the Lord, that they might 
be unto Me for a people, and for a name, and for 
a praise, and for a glory " (Jer. xiii. 1 1). 

Not only shall their sun no more go down, but 
because the Lord is their sun, " the light of the 
moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the 
light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of 
seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up 
the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke 
of their wound" (Is. xxx. 26). 



IX. 

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 

In the transfiguration — which is distinctly 
called "the Son of man coming in His king- 
dom " — we have a miniature presentation of the 
millennium. Moses and Elias, who appear with 
Christ in glory, prefigure respectively the risen 
and the changed saints translated and brought 
into one company at the appearing and kingdom 
of our Lord ; while the disciples who stand with- 
out the cloud and behold His glory are typical of 
those in the flesh, the Jews and the nations, who 
will still be left on the earth after the rapture 
of the saints. What relation to this globe will 
the transfigured Church hold in the millennium ? 
Some have maintained that she will be forever 
removed from this sphere, the world and its in- 
habitants being burned up together as soon as 
the Church is taken away. Others have held 
that while the ungodly will be utterly consumed 
at the appearing of the Lord, the earth, purified 
and renewed, will become the eternal and exclu- 
sive abople of the saints. Either view is extreme, 
as judged by a full collation of Scripture. It is 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 291 

plainly declared in Revelation that the saints 
shall " reign over the earth ; " but that they will 
be absolutely bound to it, as now, by terrestrial 
gravitation, does not follow. " They that are ac- 
counted worthy to obtain that age and the res- 
urrection from the dead . . . are angel-like, — 
to-ayyeXot, ■ — and are sons of God, being sons of -- 
the resurrection" (Luke xx. 36). Surely here is 
a suggestive hint for us. Angels visit this earth • 
and mingle with its inhabitants ; they have tan- 
gible forms, and accept material food, and exer- 
cise gracious ministries for those in the flesh, - 
and yet they reside in a higher sphere. So may 
it be with the sons of the first resurrection, — in 
perpetual contact with the earth, but not inhabit- > 
ants of it. Instinctively we turn for light on this 
subject to our Lord's forty days between His ris- ,. 
ing and His ascending. Though now in the res- 
urrection body, He associated as familiarly as ever 
with His disciples : at one time holding high dis- 
course with them concerning the things of the 
kingdom ; at another eating in their presence of 
the broiled fish and honeycomb ; to-day directing 
that cast of the net into the Sea of Galilee by 
which the multitude of fishes was enclosed, and 
to-morrow announcing the great commission in 
the mountain of Galilee by which the draw-net 
of world - wide missions was committed to His 



292 ECCE VENIT. 

Church ; and all the while maintaining that 
X strangely double life in which He was now han- 
dled and inspected to prove his body to be literal 
flesh and bones, and now mysteriously withdrawn 
like a vanishing spectre. Here is revelation in a 
mystery concerning the glorified saints and their 
relation to the millennial earth. For the life of 
Christ is the life of His Church in epitome. 

Reasoning from these hints, we gather that 
the millennial Church may hold a relation to the 
earth as close as that which we now maintain, 
and a relation to heaven as intimate as that which 
the angels enjoy. Perhaps there is more than 
poetry in the prophet's delineation of the Mes- 
sianic glory (Is. xl. 31): "They that wait upon 
the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall 
mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run 
and not be weary ; they shall walk and not 
faint : " celestial flight alternating with terres- 
trial travel, and each alike unwearying. 1 

What a realistic element in the promised vic- 
tory of the saints it is, that they shall enjoy their 
v triumphs in the very sphere where they suffered 
their defeats ! This is according to the divine 

1 " Captain Credence lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, 
Immanuel came with colors flying, trumpets sounding, and the 
feet of His men scarce touching the ground" — Bunyan's Holy 
War, 17. 



am 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 293 

purpose. The millennium is called " tJie times of 
the restitution of all things" (Acts iii. 21). The 
steps in this restitution move slowly and stead- 
ily ; but, because it is a restoration, each step for- 
ward is really a step backward towards the purity 
and perfection of the primitive paradise. All 
that was involved in the fall will be involved in 
the recovery : the soul restored to God by regen- 
eration ; the body restored to the soul by resur- 
rection ; and the earth restored to man by regen- 
esis. Thus the rainbow arch of redemption bends 
back and touches the earth from which it springs, 
— " the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which 
should follow," both have their scene in the same 
material world. And remembering that the ex- 
alted Head and the mystical body have an identi- 
cal destiny, we see how much is suggested by this 
fact. Christ returns in glory to the point of His 
earthly departure : "His feet shall stand in that 
day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before 
Jerusalem on the east " (Zech. xiv. 4). In His 
transfigured body He may now survey the literal 
scenes of His humiliation : Gethsemane, where 
He sweat great drops of blood ; and Golgotha, 
where " by wicked hands He was crucified and 
slain;" and the garden where He lay for two 
days buried. Heroic poetry, in its most pre- 
sumptuous flights, has never dreamed of such a 



294 ECCE VENIT. 



vindication for defeated warriors as this, — tri- 
umphing in a deathless body on the very field 
where the dead body was mutilated and en- 
tombed. And our Redeemer comes not alone in 
His victorious entry upon the earth : " Behold, 
the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His 
saints to execute judgment upon all, and to con- 
vince all that are ungodly among them of all 
their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly 
committed, and of all their hard speeches which 
ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Jude 
15). Christ's confessors, who, being reviled, re- 
viled not again, but committed themselves to 
Him that judgeth righteously, may tread again 
the very judgment halls where they listened in 
silence to the hard speeches of ungodly sinners 
who condemned them to death ; may stand on 
the very spot where the earth once drank up 
their witnessing blood, or tread under foot the 
very soil with which their martyr -ashes once 
mingled. 

Will the glorified Church hold relation to mor- 
tal men still living on the earth ? They who deny 
this, and suppose that the whole human race will 
be swept from the globe and destroyed at the 
coming of Christ, quote words of terrific import 
for such a view (2 Thess. i. 7). But if we balance 
Scripture with Scripture, the conclusion is other- 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 295 

wise. For not only is it taught that the advent 
judgments fall especially on apostate Christen- 
dom (Matt. xiii. 40, 41), but with equal clearness 
that Christ's coming issues in the conversion of 
Israel (Zech. xii. 10; Rom. xi. 26), and through 
Israel in the conversion of the Gentiles (Rom. xi. 
12-15 i ^ s - l x -)- W e conclude, therefore, from a 
wide collation of Scripture, that after the transla- 
tion of the Church, two classes will still remain 
living on the earth, — the Jews and the nations. 
And as the glorified saints have now become 
"kings and priests unto God," they must exer- 
cise rule and ministry over some besides them- 
selves, and over whom but these ? Here Scrip- 
ture is clear and harmonious with itself. Im- 
manuel now takes " the throne of His father 
David," that He may "reign over the house of 
Jacob forever." But He is not alone in His 
kingly rule over Israel. Of His risen saints it is 
written that " they lived and reigned with Christ 
a thousand years." His glorified Bride sits by 
Him in His throne, Queen-consort with her en- 
throned Lord ; nearer to Him than any other as 
"the wife of the Lamb." Now is fulfilled that 
Scripture which cannot be broken : " Verily I 
say unto you that ye which have followed Me in 
the regeneration," — the regenesis, -n-aXtyyev^aia, 
" when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of 



296 ECCE VENIT. 



His glory — ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones 
judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. xix. 
28). In this dominion of the risen saints there 
doubtless is order and precedence according to 
the degree of suffering and loss endured for 
Christ. The apostle band would seem to have 
especial preeminence ; next the martyr company, 
whose long waiting for the avenging of their 
blood is at last rewarded ; and saints and be- 
lievers of all generations, who have been counted 
worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection 
from the dead. Israel is still in the flesh, though 
converted, purified by long trial, and brought at 
last into loyal subjection to Messiah. Through 
her as a redeemed nation, and through her ex- 
alted city as capital of the world, the Son of 
David will now extend His blessed sway to the 
ends of the earth. " For out of Zion shall go 
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from 
Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the na- 
tions, and shall rebuke many people ; and they 
shall beat their swords into ploughshares and 
their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not 
lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn 
war any more" (Is. ii. 4). At length, through 
this benignant consummation, the righteous gov- 
ernment for which the suffering nations have 
sighed will have been reached. The last attempt 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 297 

at human rule, like all before it, will have miser- 
ably failed, and men, despairing of self-help, will 
finally be prepared to accept the benignant rule 
of God, that perfect theocracy in which Christ 
the Lord shall be King over all the earth. We 
have said in a previous chapter that election is 
not the end of grace, but the means to a vastly 
higher end. This ultimate purpose here comes 
into view. The elect Church, glorified with her 
Lord, and the elect nation Israel restored and 
converted, now take up the work of universal re- 
demption. Have we pondered the deep sugges- 
tiveness of the apostle's saying : " He hath raised 
us up together, and enthroned us together with 
Him, in order that He might shoiv forth to the 
ages which are coming the exceeding riches of His 
grace in His goodness towards its in Christ Jesus " 
(Eph. ii. 7). 1 The garnered wealth of redemp- 
tion, the holiness, and faith, and love gathered 
up from generations of chastened experience, and 
now displayed in the transfigured Church, — 
what may be the impression of this upon the 
generations of the age to come ? At last the 

1 " That God in the future order of things, that is, in the 
kingdom of God, — in which the glory of the faithful, which is 
hidden here below, will be made visible to all, — may manifest 
the overwhelming richness of His grace." — Olshausen's Para- 
phrase. 



298 ECCE VENIT. 



Son of God is fully manifested in "the manifes- 
tation of the sons of God." He has come " to 
be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all 
them that believed" (2 Thess. i. 10), — the raised 
and enthroned Church being as a mirror in which 
His majesty is reflected and displayed. Now 
will be seen " what is the riches of the glory of 
His inheritance in the saints" (Eph. i. 18). And 
we may believe that, as the Queen of Sheba was 
astonished at the splendor of Solomon, and at- 
tested her admiration by rich gifts, so the gen- 
erations yet unsubdued to Christ at the opening 
of the millennium, may be filled with wonder at 
the exhibitions of redeeming grace now visible in 
the perfected Church, and at the riches of His 
forbearance as manifested in converted Israel, 
so that they shall be moved to take up, con- 
cerning Immanuel, the beatitude of this admir- 
ing queen : " Happy are thy men, happy are 
these thy servants which stand continually before 
thee and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the 
Lord thy God which delighteth in thee to set 
thee on the throne of Israel : because the Lord 
loved Israel forever, therefore made He thee 
king to do judgment and justice" (1 Kings x. 
8, 9). These triumphs may not be gained at 
once ; but they will be effected with a rapidity 
of which we as yet know nothing, so that liter- 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 299 

ally a nation shall be born in a day. For two 
new conditions will now be brought in, — condi- 
tions utterly unknown since the fall of man : the 
binding of Satan and the universal outpouring 
of the Holy Ghost. Let us try to conceive of 
the astonishing changes which will thus ensue in 
the complete repression of " the spirit that now 
worketh in the children of disobedience," and in 
the unrestrained operation of the Spirit of truth 
and holiness now poured out upon all flesh. What 
will have now come to pass is not simply an 
exchange of malign influences in the earth for 
more benign, but the actual dethronement of 
"the god of this age," 1 and the unhindered 
reign of Christ in his stead. Thus there is a 
complete reversal of conditions : " the Prince of 
Peace " holding absolute sway in the dominion 
where the "Prince of the power of the air" has 
so long triumphed. Now will be ushered in the 
real golden age of which the weary nations have 
so long dreamed, — the true Sabbath-keeping for 
which the people of God have waited. If our 

1 " That which ceases by the binding of Satan is the cohesive 
power of evil, by which it has been able to become an historical 
and motive principle in the development and in the life of na- 
tions, by which it has proved itself a ruling power on earth. In- 
stead of that now comes in the development of the power of the 
glorified Church of God." — Karsten. 



300 ECCE VENIT. 



readers have been inclined to put a mark of in- 
terrogation against any of our millennial anticipa- 
tions, we have only to remind them that when the 
chief apostle bounds forward in thought to this 
period, and speaks of its "far more exceeding 
and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. iv. 17), his 
language becomes well-nigh untranslatable, he so 
joins hyperbole to hyperbole — xaff v-rrepjSoXrjv eU 
vireppoXrjv — in his effort to express its transcen- 
dent blessedness. " The uniquely beautiful, the 
eternally true, the highest good, must be fittingly 
made manifest upon an earth whereon they have 
been so long ignored ; and as that earth has so 
long crowned with thorns its lawful King, it must 
contemplate Him yet once again in His full 
beauty. It is this blissful period to which proph- 
ecies like Isaiah xi. 6-9, xxxv., lx., lxv., and others 
appear to us to point. It will be the time in 
which the kingdom of God rules upon earth. 
Purified by suffering and conflict, the Church of 
God now shares in the triumph of its Head : the 
Bride finds her rest, after her long wanderings in 
the desert, on the bosom of the Bridegroom. It 
now becomes apparent that the kingdom of God 
is in reality a power in every domain with which 
it comes in contact, and that the highest manifes- 
tation of the truth calls forth a life such as with- 
out this is nowhere found on earth. In a word, 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 301 

it is the time of the Christocracy ever more tri- 
umphantly unfolding itself ; the realization of the 
Ideal, of which the old Theocracy in Israel was 
only the shadow ; a realization, however, which 
in nothing detracts from the universalistic char- 
acter of the Saving Revelation now brought to 
completion." 1 

The relation of the three classes of men in the 
millennium has been compared to the threefold 
division of the tabernacle. The Bride of Christ, 
the glorified Church, is the Holy of Holies, ex- 
alted into equal fellowship with her Head. 2 Con- 
verted Israel is in the relation of the Holy Place, 
and the nations which come up to worship Jeho- 
vah stand as in the court of the Gentiles. Only 
we must be reminded how completely the veil of 
the Holiest is now rent asunder, so that as the 
millennial triumph advances all peoples are em- 
braced in the light of God's favor. The cloud of 
glory — symbol of Jehovah's presence — was first 
contained within a narrow ark in the wilderness ; 

1 Van Osterzee, Christian Dogmatics, p. 799. 

2 " How beautifully does the prophet Isaiah (Is. iv. 5) suggest 
the Bridal relationship of Christ to His Church in the millen- 
nium ! The shekinah glory has returned : 'A cloud and smoke 
by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night.' And now it 
is said, not as in our common version : ' For upon all the glory 
shall be a defense,' but ' Upon all the glory shall be the mar- 
riage canopy? " 



302 ECCE VENIT. 



then, as the Temple of Solomon was dedicated, it 
filled the whole house, so that "the priests could 
not stand to minister by reason of the cloud " 
(2 Chron. v. 14) ; in its final outreach it will em- 
brace the world in its effulgence, and the whole 
earth will become a Holy of Holies. Then will 
the kingdom of God be fully consummated ; the 
blessed predictions of righteousness and peace 
contained in the seventy-second Psalm will be no 
longer chanted only in the music of the Levites, 
but they will be set to the measures of literal 
accomplishment, and sung out in the strains of 
triumphant experience: "All men shall be blessed 
in Him ; all nations shall call Him blessed." At 
length, in a restored creation, will Messiah see 
of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Thus 
will the Psalm of redemption be finished : "And 
let the whole earth be filled with His glory. 
Amen, and amen. The prayers of David the son 
of Jesse are ended " (Ps. lxxii. 20). 

But we have outrun our argument, and must 
return to what has been passed over. 

Beside Jew and Gentile and Church of God, 
there is still another sharer in the millennial re- 
demption ; a dumb partner who is yet to find 
utterance when "the hills shall break forth into 
singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap 
their hands." " Often " says Goethe, " have I had 



... 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 303 

the sensation as if Nature, in wailing sadness, 
entreated something of me, so that not to under- 
stand what she longed for cut me to the heart." 
We understand what her longing is, and what is 
to be God's final answer to it. " For we know 
that the whole creation groaneth and travail eth 
in pain together until now, . . . waiting for the 
adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body" 
(Rom. viii. 23). Earth bears the wound received 
through man's transgression, and the brute cre- 
ation travails in anguish with fallen humanity. 
Deep as is the mystery of punishment for sin, 
the punishment of no sin, as witnessed in animal 
suffering, is even more inexplicable. " In Adam 
all die : " not only all persons but all things. But 
as man and creation fell together, so must they 
rise together in the time of redemption. Earth 
will then lay off her soiled week-day garb and put 
on her Sabbath dress, and, with her singing robes 
about her, take up again that anthem which was 
heard when the morning stars sang together, and 
all the sons of God shouted for joy. " Cursed is 
the ground for thy sake, thorns and briers shall 
it bring forth to thee" (Gen. iii. 17, 18), is the 
sentence which for six thousand years has re- 
mained as a sign and testimony to God's judg- 
ment upon sin. But then : " Instead of the thorn 
shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier 



304. ECCE VENIT. 



shall come up the myrtle tree : and it shall be to 
the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that 
shall not be cut off" (Is. lv. 13). The beauty of 
holiness and the eternal harmony of redemption 
must be displayed where the dishonor of sin has 
been most visible. Therefore this globe, which 
has so long served as a grave for man fallen, will 
now serve as a temple for man upraised ; yea, 
more, as Anselm says : " The whole earth, which 
carried in its lap the body of the Lord, will be 
a paradise." 

With such predestined glory before her, what 
wonder that Nature should be found taking her 
place with Christ and the Church as an eager 
expectant of the Advent ? If we could bring out 
the full original of that passage, " For the earnest 
expectation of the creature zvaitctJi for the mani- 
festation of the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 19), we 
should behold a delineation so graphic that, as 
Godet has said, " A sculptor of any imagination 
and genius might carve a statue of Hope from it." 
The picture is this : " Nature, an unwilling slave 
to vanity and corruption, stands, impatient of her 
bonds, with uplifted head, scanning with longing 
eye the distant point of the horizon from which she 
looks for help, her hands stretched out to grasp and 
welcome the redemption into freedom and perfec- 
tion which she yearns for and confidently expects.'" 1 
1 Dr. Samuel Cox on Rom. viii. 19. 



_ 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 305 

It is necessary to emphasize this truth of the 
rehabilitation of the earth on philosophical as well 
as on spiritual grounds. For we know not how 
to vindicate the ways of God to sober thinkers, 
if this material world is to end in catastrophe in- 
stead of regeneration. A vague shadowy heaven 
beyond the stars, to which man as a bodiless im- 
mortal spirit is to be finally transported, has lit- 
tle meaning or attraction for the ordinary mind. 
And we are free to say that such a conception is 
a triumph of Gnostic philosophy over scriptural 
revelation, — the philosophy which finds man's 
highest happiness in release from this material 
body, and therefore, logically, the race's high- 
est attainment in deliverance from this material 
world. While this notion is widely prevalent in 
the Christian Church of our day, we deny that 
there is anything inspiring or victorious in it. 1 
Instead of the apostolic prayer for the perfection 

1 It is a one-sided spiritualism which can conceive of no per- 
fectly consummated blessedness save in a heaven distant as far 
as possible from this earth. Infinitely more acceptable, and 
more worthy of God, is the Biblical conception that this earth, 
too, which, through sin laden with the curse has been made the 
scene of grace, has, as well as other worlds, a peculiar destina- 
tion to accomplish in the realization of God's adorable plan ; and 
that the gulf shall entirely cease to be, which at present exists 
between heaven and earth." — Van Oosterzee, Image of Christ, 
p. 491. 



306 ECCE VENIT. 



of our " whole spirit, soul and body at the coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ," it places our hope in 
the dismemberment of this human trinity : it 
proposes a truce with the grave, willingly sur- 
rendering the body to its possession, provided 
only the soul may be eliminated in the dissolv- 
ing chemistry of death, and float away to some 
realm of happy shades. Instead of rejoicing in 
the beatitude, " Blessed are the meek : for they 
shall inherit the earth," it makes haste to yield 
all right and title to this globe, if only the saints 
may be released from its gross environments, and 
soar to worlds unknown. Even so lofty a thinker 
as Edwards gives full sway to this idea in his 
" History of Redemption," where, speaking of the 
end, he says: "Thus Christ's Church shall for- 
ever leave this accursed world to go into the high- 
est heaven, the paradise of God. . . . When they 
are gone this world shall be set on fire and turned 
into a great furnace, wherein all the enemies of 
Christ and His Church shall be tormented for- 
ever." Is this an alluring conception of redemp- 
tion, that in its final issue it will have turned 
what was made to be a Paradise for man's delight, 
into a purgatory for his torment ? We should 
call this the apotheosis of divine failure, rather 
than the crown of divine redemption. Yet it is 
the logical outcome of that philosophy which con- 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 307 



siders the spiritual to be everything, and the 
material nothing. We hold that it is infinitely 
honoring: to the Creator to believe that in the 
end He will be found tabernacling in a restored 
world, from which He has wiped away the last 
vestige of sin, and in which He has silenced the 
last discord of rebellion. 1 If the problem of hu- 
man destiny is to be worked out to a successful 
issue only on some yonder side of creation, and 
in such unknown terms and quantities that even 
the spiritual Christian cannot comprehend it, how 
impossible it will be to justify God's dealings to 
men ! In treating of the doctrine of future life, 
it may be questioned whether modern theology 
has not so far withdrawn from a sober and Scrip- 



1 " Upon two distinct grounds we may believe that the earth 
will ultimately be made new, — First, that having been brought 
under the bondage of corruption, not of its own will, but by the 
sin of man, it is embraced in the scope of redemption ; it is to 
enter into 'the liberty of the glory of the children of God' 
(Rom. viii. 21). Second, that God having made man, body and 
soul, and appointed the body to be an essential element in 
humanity, He will so order the material world that it shall min- 
ister in the highest degree to all his needs. If the body be 
raised into a higher condition through resurrection, there must 
be a corresponding change in its material environments, — the 
new creation serving as a means to higher knowledge of God, 
and to the continual enlargement of man's conception of His 
power, wisdom, and goodness" — Rev. S. J. Andrews, God's 
Revelations to Men, p. 361. 



308 ECCE VENIT. 



tural materialism as to be carried into an atten- 
uated, and for the most part incomprehensible, 
spiritualism. We believe, on the contrary, that 
in setting forth the judgments and rewards of 
the future, God has expressed them in conditions 
which even the men of this world may under- 
stand if they will. 

That there must t>e a baptism of judgment-fire 
for the earth, preparatory to this anointing with 
millennial joy, is plainly revealed. How difficult 
it is to explain the predictions of Scripture on 
this subject, we need not say. "The day of the 
Lord" of which Peter writes — "in the which 
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, 
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, 
the earth also and the works that are therein 
shall be burned up " — is evidently a long period, 
embracing the entire age, from the second advent 
to the close of the millennium. It is within this 
era that these burning judgments occur. But 
the fire is for purging, and not for annihilating, 
since the announcement immediately follows : 
" Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, 
look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet. iii. 13). In the 
prophecy of Isaiah we have a glimpse of this re- 
newed order : " For, behold, I create new heavens 
and a new earth, and the former shall not be re- 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM. 309 

membered nor come into mind " (Is. lxv. 17). 
Now Jerusalem is seen restored and made a per- 
petual joy in the earth ; a warring creation has 
been tamed, and the wolf and the lamb are found 
peacefully feeding together. But though life is 
wondrously ameliorated and prolonged, so that 
one a century of age is counted an infant, — 
"The child shall die an hundred years old," — 
immortality has not yet been reached for the U %* 

whole race on earth. The goal of death has been 
pushed far onward, but not abolished ; and though 
for the risen Church death has been swallowed 
up in victory, it still has dominion over men in 
this globe during the millennium. 

But looking on to the end of this millennial 
period we behold the final and perfected order 
in which mortality, with all its sorrowful accom- 
paniments, has at last been swept away : "And I 
saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first 
heaven and the first earth were passed away : 
and there was no more sea" (Rev. xxi. 1). Now 
the climax of blessedness has been reached for 
the world and all that dwell therein. As the 
opening of the millennium witnessed the bridal 
of the Church with Christ, its close will witness 
the bridal of the earth with heaven. Then the 
redeemed were caught up into the clouds to cele- 
brate their nuptials with their Lord ; now the 



3 TO ECCE VENIT. 



Lord comes down to our globe to celebrate the 
nuptials of the earth and sky : "And I heard a 
great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the 
tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall 
dwell with them, and they shall be His people, 
and God Himself shall be with them and be their 
God. And God shall wipe away all tears from 
their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be 
any more pain ; for the former things are passed 
away" (Rev. xxi. 3, 4). 

From all we have thus considered, our infer- 
ence is, that the redemption of the earth will 
begin with the return of the Lord from heaven 
at the opening of the millennium ; but will only 
be perfected at the end of that period, when 
death shall be forever abolished, and there shall 
be no more curse. The millennial kingdom is 
thus redemptive, not only for the race, but for 
the earth, — the final chapter in the great res- 
toration which is to usher in the eternal state. 
Though far surpassing all which we now know in 
blessedness, the millennium will not be a fault- 
less condition. Sin and sin's agencies will still 
have a certain sway ; for Satan will yet once 
more incite rebellion before being finally and 
forever cast into the lake of fire (Rev. xx. 
3-10). But after that the eternally perfect, the 



THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM 



faultlessly holy, condition will be reached. Of 
this condition we can as yet only catch transport- 
ing glimpses, and speak in stammering accents. 
It is the time when God shall be all in all, and 
the whole world brought into unwavering obe- 
dience to His will. The long-suffering Church 
forever married to her Lord ; Israel, once hated 
and forsaken, now made an " eternal excellency, 
a joy of many generations;" the Gentiles, who 
long lay at the gate full of sores, carried by 
angels into Abraham's bosom ; and the world, 
with all its reconciled inhabitants, lying forever 
on the breast of God. 

" Earth, thou grain of sand on the shore of the 
Universe of God ; thou Bethlehem, amongst the 
princely cities of the heavens, — thou art, and re- 
mainest, the Loved One amongst ten thousand 
suns and worlds, the Chosen of God ! Thee will 
He again visit, and then thou wilt prepare a 
throne for Him, as thou gavest Him a manger 
cradle ; in His radiant glory wilt thou rejoice, as 
thou didst once drink His blood and His tears 
and mourn His death ! On thee has the Lord 
a great work to complete ! " 



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